


Riverside

by GrumpyJenn



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Diary/Journal, Gap Filler, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-01-24 20:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 22,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1616735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time flows like a river, but how does the River see it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. From Earth to the Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [areyoumarriedriver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyoumarriedriver/gifts), [Kehwie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kehwie/gifts), [ChiefDoctor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChiefDoctor/gifts), [SnubNosedSilhouette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnubNosedSilhouette/gifts), [Radiolaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/gifts), [Sandbar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandbar/gifts), [TardisTexan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisTexan/gifts), [Time_Lordess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Time_Lordess/gifts), [inaboxonacloud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inaboxonacloud/gifts), [spoilersweetie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoilersweetie/gifts), [Amie33](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amie33/gifts), [Kerjen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerjen/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Time Flows Like a River](https://archiveofourown.org/works/746538) by [GrumpyJenn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpyJenn/pseuds/GrumpyJenn). 



_“Don’t you touch her! Do not harm her in any way!”_

_~The Eleventh Doctor, Let’s Kill Hitler_

 

They had convinced her that he was a monster, and River Song - when she first became River Song, and oh, how that had _hurt_ \- River Song believed them.

No matter that he was also Amy’s Raggedy Doctor; they had… _someone_ had, who was it?… damaged River, and when she became the woman he would grow to love, she hated him.

She loved him, and she hated him, and she would have to kill him. It wasn’t under her control and oh, _bless_ but she wanted him to forgive her.

That was all. Forgiveness.

It was clear that he felt more than forgiveness, more than duty, more than obligation, though all those were part of what he felt. He hated that they were hurting her; she could see it in his eyes.

And she didn’t think it was only guilt, the guilt he often felt when people were hurt because of him, the guilt that Mum and Dad had told her of, bringing her up though they didn’t know it.

He was terribly _hurt_ by them hurting her, she could see it even through the red haze of their pain beam.

It was as though he _cared_ , not just for her as a member - part member - of his favourite species, but as though he cared for _her_. Mels Zucker, the bad girl he barely knew who had shot up his beloved ship. He cared for her.

And he was terrified, not only for his own death, but for _her_ , on her behalf, and for her parents. He wasn’t even afraid to show it, not to her, though he kept up a good front for the Tesselecta.

“Please,” he said, weakly. _Please what?_ Her mind babbled at her. _I don’t know what to do, I can’t fix this, I’m doing it wrong and I’ll be punished, like the… the… like I was punished before, please would you just_ die _so I can go home and be away from everyone forever, please_ … “Now we have to save your parents. Don't run. Now I know you're scared.” _I am, I’m scared. But I mustn’t show it. Show no damage. If I show damage I’ll be punished, I..._ “But never run when you're scared. Rule 7. Please.”

She couldn’t bear it any longer, she had to… to… And then suddenly she was in his ship, the TARDIS, and she had been forgiven for shooting it. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she _did_ know. And the ship showed her, took her over and walked her through saving them, saving her parents.

Years, even centuries later, River Song wondered why she hadn’t fought the TARDIS taking her over like that, and she ultimately decided that her mind had been too… fractured from the terrible things the Silence had done to her; she had had no way to resist.

At least the TARDIS had been gentle.

But she saved them with the ship’s guidance, and then they were there, all three of them, and she could see that he wasn’t going to make it after all. Part of her had hoped… had hoped that maybe, because he did forgive, maybe he even cared for her a little bit, that he would be all right.

She knelt by him.

“Find her,” the Doctor whispered. “Find River Song and tell her something from me...”

“Tell her what?” She leaned in to hear; his voice was fading.

“Tell her I...”

And then it hit her, all at once.

He wasn’t only Amy’s Raggedy Doctor.

He wasn’t only the Boogeyman for the Silence. 

He was a man.

A man with quirks and failings to be sure, but a _good_ man.

And she knew what she must do. 

“River. No. What are you doing?” _I don’t know, but I must do it._

“Hello, sweetie,” River said, and kissed him.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“He said no-one could save him, but he must have known I could.”

Oh, _bless_ , but she was tired.

When she woke again to find it was several days later, the Catkind - _Catkind? Is that right?_ -  nurse smiled at her in her feline way, and placed the book in her hands.

The book was TARDIS blue, and blank but for the inscription on the flyleaf.

 _River Song,_ it read.  
 _Keep this, and write down everything you see with me, every time you see it. I cannot tell you more than this, River Song, Melody Pond, for fear of spoilers. But I want you to keep this book with you, treasure it, use it. And think of me. You will be amazing.  
_ _The Doctor_

River sighed.

She got out of bed and stood, gingerly. _Good enough,_ she thought; _I’m feeling quite well for a girl who used up all her regenerations in one go, and then spent a week asleep._

 _Right then, this hospital must have a little shop. Have I any money?_ She inquired of the nurse, who smiled and handed her a chit of some sort. _Aha! credits_ , River thought, and sighed again. It would be nice to have enough money to buy things instead of nicking them; she wondered how much was here. The nurse brought her a portable computer and plugged the chit into it for her, showing her how to use it.

River’s jaw dropped.

She supposed it was enough money to furnish a whole wardrobe, and possibly pay for living expenses for quite some time, depending on where she was. And _when_ ; she was fairly sure there were no Catkind on 21st century Earth. She looked around for a date on the screen and tapped at something that looked promising, though why it had the word _apple_ in it she did not know.

River’s jaw dropped again. The Catkind hospital was near Earth, on the moon in fact.

But the date was the year 5123.

A blinking icon caught her attention, and she smiled at it; the silly man _(just a man)_ had put in a flashing red fez. She tapped it.

And then she watched as a map came up on the screen. A miniature TARDIS streaked along the map from a building labelled _Sisters of the Infinite Schism - You Are Here_ across the desert plain of the moon to a domed town marked _Luna University_.

 _'I would tell you more, River, about how I know you attended / will attend good old LU',_ his voice came from a speaker set into the computer screen, _'but… spoilers.'_

Two days later, attired in the best of her new wardrobe - the hospital _had_ had a little shop, and the Luna University campus was a small city of them - River Song sat across the table from the man who would become her advisor.

“So then,” said the man with the ludicrous name of Professor Candy. “Tell me, why do you want to study archaeology?”

“Well to be perfectly honest, Professor,” River replied, “I'm looking for a good man.”

_One of the best men I’ve ever known._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Analogous to Time Flows Like a River: Lessons from Berlin


	2. University and Bones

_“Look at you. You’re young.”_

_~Professor River Song, Silence in the Library_

 

He never came to see her.

And _oh_ , she wanted him to, wanted to be certain he didn’t hate her, that he had forgiven her for…

Well, for everything.

For kissing him and killing him. For loving him and hating him.

River’d thought he’d come, but she supposed he couldn’t.

Or wouldn't, not if he hated her.  
If he hadn’t forgiven her after all.

That knowledge - or supposition - that he might not be _able_ to come; it didn’t really help, but at least it made some sort of sense.

Very little else about him did, and she ought to know; she was now the universe’s leading expert on the Doctor, even if it was only through research.

_and the vague memory of_  
 _lightning and pain and_  
 _punishment_

_and the Raggedy Doctor_  
 _and her mother’s_  
 _faith in him_

River wished he’d come, but he never did, so she threw herself into her research, her classes, her field trips.

She had never realised that she was… intelligent. The… someone... must have told her how stupid she was, told her over and over until she believed it. She remembered that Mels - when she had been Mels - had been too busy telling teachers how stupid _they_ were to study, so maybe she had just needed teachers who assumed she could do it. Or maybe she just needed to study a subject she…

right, well… 

The next time she saw him she was unprepared.

She had expected - if he came at all - for him to come at Luna U, where he knew she would be.

Not here in the Bone Meadows, on a planet she didn’t remember the name of because it only had a catalogue number.

Her partner on this dig had teleported up to the school ship for her daily religious ritual.  anSclerree had to be either on her own planet or on a ship; other planets’ magnetic fields apparently hampered communication with anSclerree’s deities. River did not care _why_ her classmate had to leave - she had a fine and contemptuous disregard for all things churchly, no matter the church - but it did interfere with their schedule.

It also gave her time to think, to be alone and think.

River heard the whooshing sound, and at the same time she felt something in the back of her mind. Something that felt familiar and friendly, and… and like _family_. Like Amy and Rory, but _more_ , like…

River was still trying to puzzle this out, trying to determine what it was in the back of her mind that she felt, when the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS.

She felt her mouth drop open. He looked so much _younger_ than he had when she’d seen him last.

 _kissed him and killed him_  

The Doctor blinked hair out of his eyes and once he broke eye contact, River found she could move. She got to her feet, and heard the sound of her own voice saying, “Hello, sweetie,” as he met her eyes again.

He began walking slowly toward her, and she couldn’t wait; she rushed at him, heedless of the archaeological finds she was probably destroying, and she flung her arms around him.

She kissed him hard on the lips and for one endless but infinitesimal moment he kissed her back.

But then he pulled away. “River…” His voice was hoarse, and regretful, and with just a hint of reproof in it. River dropped her eyes.

“I didn’t expect you. I haven’t seen you since B--” She broke off as he shook his head violently.

_he hasn’t forgiven me_  
 _Rule One, he said_  
 _the Doctor lies_  
 _he hasn’t forgiven me_

But he was talking, and River wrenched her attention back to him.

“River,” he said gently, “look at me.” She shook her head, but otherwise she was very still... on the outside. On the inside she was weeping, because he hadn’t forgiven her. “Look at me,” he said again, and tipped her face up, kissing her softly on the forehead. “I can’t tell you much,” he said quietly, “but you know about the spoilers?” She nodded. He sighed again. “And you understand that our lives are... opposite in some ways?” She nodded again, and the hurt feeling was beginning to fade, to be replaced by one of dawning understanding.

Maybe he had forgiven her after all.

“So you don’t come see me at Luna, because you... haven’t?” Her voice was rusty and she cleared her throat as he nodded. “Because it would, what? Change our history?” She shook her head. “Never mind, of course that’s it.” The hurt was gone, with resignation in its place. She took a deep breath. “Right then,” she said in a falsely bright voice. “Want to come dig in the dirt with me then? I’m told you don’t much care for it, but as you’ve come all this way...”

The Doctor pulled a face at her and she nearly took back her request. If he didn’t want to, she wouldn’t force him. But then he smiled. “In the dirt’s as good a place to start as any; there’s something very... timey wimey about this planet. The timelines are converging here in some very odd ways.” Whipping out his sonic, he began to scan the area, the bones, River herself. “Hmm... mammalian bipeds, mostly, though there’s an odd mix of other bones here. River, could you...” he trailed off, and she felt herself frowning at him. “What?”

“You’re cheating!”

“Am not,” he responded, and grinned at her. “If I were a... an archaeologist this would be cheating. But I’m not, I’m the Doctor, and this is a perfectly legitimate way of getting information. Oh, stop pouting,” and here he bopped her lightly on the nose with one long forefinger. “You love it.”

“No,” River said, “I hate you.”

“You don’t.” He smirked at her.

“Fine,” she muttered, and knelt again, trying not to cry. “You know where to find me.”

“River?” She looked up, wiping a hand over her forehead. He knelt beside her, heedless of the dirt. “Hand me a spade.”

They dug companionably for a while. “The Fields of Trenzalore,” she said, looking carefully at the sliver of a pot that she unearthed, “But that's not here, it's across the galaxy, and… Oh, look at this! Hmm... not just a cooking pot, something special, maybe for medicine or a ritual...”

Then River sat back on her heels and stretched. “I... Doctor, I think I’ve found something. Help me.” She began to pick round the edges of something with a small tool, pausing to brush off the face of the... tablet?... that they were unearthing. Then she lifted it free. It was a flat hinged box, and inside the box, what seemed to be a memorial plaque. It looked like examples she had seen of Gallifreyan script.

  

                                                                                  

The Doctor took the plaque from River, and stood. “Can you translate it, Doctor?” He was staring at the plaque, his lips moving, but he looked as though he’d had a shock. “Doctor?”

 

suddenly the planet faded  
the bones were gone  
it was just the two of them  
and blackness 

and wet, swirling wind

River looked around and saw… saw… she didn’t know what she saw, but she...

_shapes and a hill and_  
 _lightning, the lightning_  
 _she’d be punished_  
 _she had to get away_

...felt herself trembling, and she didn’t know why, which frightened her even more. The Doctor was clinging to her hand, and she said his name. He tugged her to him and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She knew he could feel her shaking and she didn’t care; there was something about the figures on the hill that utterly terrified her.

“Shall we see what that is?” he muttered, nodding at the lightning-wreathed bipeds on the hill. She knew he could feel her nod, but he could also feel her trembling. “If you’d rather not, we can look for a way to leave here,” he offered, and she froze, took a deep breath, and shook her head.

“Let’s go see,” she said in a quiet tone, indicating the large X he’d carved into the ground. “Is that your escape route?” He nodded, and she nodded back, once. “Good. Always a good idea to have one. Several, if you can manage it.” She held out a hand, and he took it.

They walked toward the little hill together.

When they got to where the ground began to slope upward, the Doctor paused, looking up. He pulled out his sonic, and River glanced at him.

Then all hell broke loose.

The group at the top of the hill parted, revealing a trio of humanoid figures in front of the rectangular bulk. River shuddered in fear, and she very nearly ran screaming.

The creatures were vaguely humanoid, some tall, with long faces, rounded bald skulls, long arms; others with no faces at all except mouths, wearing hats and frock coats. “Turn,” one of the tall ones said, and this time River felt the Doctor tremble. “Turn,” the alien repeated, “Turn and run and forget.”

They ran together, holding hands, back to the large X carved by sonic in the dark grass. The Doctor waved the sonic, and they leapt through the rent in time as it appeared. Falling, and the spinning, swirling wind, drier this time, and they forgot what they were running from. Forgot the aliens and the humanoids on the hill and…

“Hello,” the Doctor said, and smiled, and she smiled back.

“Hello.” She reached out hesitantly and brushed his hair back from his face. His grin grew wider.

“I could grow to like this,” the Doctor admitted in a low tone, waving his arms to indicate the dig, the warm dry day, the two of them together in it.

“I thought you didn’t like archaeology?”

“I don’t. Silly business, most of it, counting potsherds and bones as though it meant something. But for you... this isn’t about broken bits of pottery or old bones. It’s about solving the puzzles of history, the stories and the people.” He smiled at her. “I quite like that.”

River smiled back. “Well then, here’s a puzzle for you. What object was once in this box? No, don’t scan it,” she said as he reached into his pocket for his sonic. “Just feel.” She took his hands and held them in hers, guiding them to the flat, hinged box as he closed his eyes, the better to feel as instructed.

The Doctor opened his eyes.

“Well,” said River Song, “What did you feel?”

The Doctor hesitated.

“Not much,” he said casually. “Just a sense that it’s very old.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Analogous to Time Flows like a River: Bone Meadows


	3. Lakeside

_“I_ can’t _let you die, without knowing you are loved!”  
~River Song, The Wedding of River Song_

 

 _I don’t know where I am_ , River thought. 

But she knew.  
Oh, she knew. 

She was in a space suit, in the bottom of a lake in Utah.

And she was in a pyramid.  
With _her_. And _them_. 

Timey wimey, the Doctor would call it.

If she didn’t have to kill him.

 _No!_ she thought, _I will not kill him! They can’t make me!_

_Oh, who the hell am I fooling; of course they can make me._

_They always have_.

River shivered inside the space suit, even as her other self, the one at Area 52, flirted with the Doctor. He kept trying to touch her, and she knew - she _knew_ \- that if he touched her all was lost.

She would have to kill him.

He said terrible things to her - “River! River! This is ridiculous! That would mean nothing to anyone. It's insane. Worse, it's _stupid_! You embarrass me!” - trying to anger her, trying to get her to strike out at him. But she could see what he was doing.

_Oh, bless, does he really hate himself so much? So much that he can’t believe people want to help him?_

“Shut up!” It was a shout; she had lost that much control. “I can’t let you die, without knowing you are loved!” _Please understand, sweetie, I can’t help it, the suit is too strong._ “By so many, and so much. And by no-one more than me.”

He turned away and told Amy to un-cuff him, and she did as she was told. He told River to wrap one end of his bow tie round her hand, and she did as she was told. He told Rory to say, “I consent and gladly give…” and he did as he was told.

And then the Doctor gave River a tiny quirk of a half-smile, even as he looked her very seriously in the face.

“Now, River. I'm about to whisper something in your ear and you have to remember it very, very carefully and tell no one what I said.” He leaned in “Look into my eye,” he whispered, and she did.

on the shore of Lake Silencio,  
the Doctor forgave River,  
always and completely 

and on the pyramid, River saw   
the Doctor in the Doctor  
and she understood

“I just told you my name,” he said, quirking a little smile at her and easing back. “Now. There you go, River Song. Melody Pond. The woman who married me. And wife, I have a request. This world is dying and it's my fault.”

_It’s not, it’s mine._

“And I can't bear it another day. Please, help me. There isn't another way.”

“Then you may kiss the bride.” _Please, please kiss the bride..._

“I'll make it a good one,” he said, and swallowed hard.

“You’d better.”

They kissed, are kissing, will kiss, and River shot, is shooting, will shoot the Tesselecta on the shore of Lake Silencio.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~ 

 

River remembered very little of her trial, her incarceration. It didn’t matter anyway; she trusted the Doctor, trusted that she was forgiven, always and completely.

Trusted that he would come find her and reassure her.

But when he did; River suddenly felt shy. Shyness was not an emotion with which River Song was familiar or comfortable, so she brazened it out.

Brazening it out by flirting was an activity with which River was _very_ familiar, and so comfortable that the behaviour fit like skin.

And then there was another Doctor, and wasn’t that an interesting thought; the mind raced. But then the Doctor, _her_ Doctor told her never to change, and she brushed by him on her way out the door, saying saucily, “Oh, Doctor, you and your secrets. You’ll be the death of me.”

 _an echo_  
of an aching and  
ancient grief and pain 

River blinked. Then she smiled automatically up at the Doctor as he came up beside her and he held out a hand. “Will you run with me, Doctor River Song?” She accepted the hand, and they ran to the skimmer station, rented one and took it to the mountain, just above the surface of the sea. She allowed him to help her out of the skimmer in his best courtly fashion, and he sonicked the ticket machine - they had used all they had of anything remotely like money to rent the skimmer - and they looked up at the enormous tree for a while.

“It’s lovely, Doctor,” River said softly, and smiled up at him. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Any time, Doctor Song,” he replied, smiling down in return. _He’s smiling,_ she thought, _but his eyes… why are his eyes so sad?_ Then he tugged at her hand until she followed him into the lift at the base of the giant tree.

River wanted nothing more than to erase the sadness from his eyes, so the moment the lift doors closed, she launched herself at him, pinning him to the wall and kissing him for all she was worth.

And he cooperated, enthusiastically.

Until there was the sound of what - in a human or a Time Lord - would be a throat clearing. And the Doctor and River froze, lips still touching. He opened his eyes, pushed River’s voluminous hair aside, and peered around her ear at something - or was it some _one_? - in the other corner of the lift.

“Er, hello,” he said, then removed his mouth from River’s and said it again. River began to giggle as she followed his gaze to the violet-stalked column of eyes.

“Hello,” the being said equably, and some of its stalks started to change colour. Several of them were edging from violet to pink, and others to blue. “Is this a mating chamber? We-I thought it was a lift.”

River laughed harder, then squeaked as the Doctor elbowed her in the ribs. “River,” he hissed, sounding utterly scandalised, “It’s a serious question for them-him. Sulamids. You aren’t helping.” She subsided and he turned back to the alien. “Our species do not have mating chambers as such,” he explained earnestly, “But we are recently er...” he trailed off, delicately, and the Sulamid waved a few tentacles in query.

“Formally mated,” River put in, rescuing him, and the waving tentacles changed colour again as the Sulamid waved them harder.

“Ah,” they-he said. “Felicitations. Carry on then.” And all the tentacular stalks turned their eyes politely away, into the opposite corner of the lift.

River began to giggle again, gave the Doctor a smacking kiss on the lips, and waited as demurely as she could manage for the lift doors to open.

When they reached the top, the Sulamid waved all of their-his tentacles at the two of them, and exited the lift, clearly intending to give them privacy. They followed them-him out, and watched as the alien wandered off down a long, wide branch of the tree and disappeared into foliage.

“That was rather nice,” River said, still giggling quietly, as they started off in a different direction, their chosen branch heading slightly upward. They held hands and walked - no need to run here and now - through a screen of leaves to a small meadow. There was a padded bench and the Doctor drew River to it, sitting and pulling her down beside him, dropping her diary into her lap. A seat back scrolled smoothly out of the back of the bench, and as they sat against it, he pulled out his screwdriver and sonicked it so it reclined. They lay there on the bench, propped in a stargazing position, holding hands, and watched as the stars came out.

“It’s lovely,” River breathed as the clock ticked around to 12:12 AM. The Doctor plucked her copy of their diary off her lap and handed it to her. _Silly man,_ she thought, _he has to prove that it’s bright enough to read by._ So she gave him an affectionate but exasperated look, but she did open it, and found that it was true.

“Shall we add a new chapter to it, my River?” he asked her softly, and reached a long-fingered hand out to twirl it in one of her curls.

And then the Doctor made love to his River Song, and taught her to love him in return.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parallel to Time Flows Like a River: A Wedding Dance


	4. Banged Up in Jail

_“You’ve already had me banged up in jail for five years. What else’re you gonna do? Spank me?”_

_~River Song, Last Night_

 

Enough was enough. The Doctor had put River in jail – and she understood the reasons for it, truly she did – but then... he had just _left_. He took her to Calderon Beta, and what a night that had been, and a few weeks later he took her to the Planet of the Purple Moons, and the very next day to the Sands of Shifting Tides, and then...

And then nothing. For very nearly five years, just... nothing.

She wasn’t helpless without him, of course. She had her books and she’d made a little bigger-on-the-inside pocket back on the pyramid – she understood the physics and she had had the equipment there – so she had more than her jailers thought she had.

A pulse pistol, for instance.

And a vortex manipulator.

“Doctor Song.” The voice was hard for so young a man. And he _was_ young, the new guard. Octavian, they called him; he couldn’t be more than sixteen. Eyes that cold should never be in a face that young.

River sighed. It wasn’t her fault he detested her, not entirely, not when the Doctor had put her here no matter how good his reasons. But young Brother Octavian despised her anyway, and unlike most of the guards, he didn’t bother to hide it. Poor boy; he could grow to be a good man, but so _inflexible_. “Yes, Brother Octavian?” _Always use his title, be respectful,_ she thought, _maybe he’ll at least learn not to be so... cold to me._

It did seem to catch him off guard, and River smirked inwardly, careful to keep the expression off her face.

“You...” he trailed off, obviously struggling to maintain his dignity and River took pity on him. Pity that was cut off short as he regained his composure and said, in a curious voice, “Why did you do it?”

 _Oh, if you only knew what I had done..._ “Do what,” she said in as even a tone as she could manage, and it wasn’t a question.

The look he gave her was so full of loathing and scorn and affronted teenage dignity that she closed her eyes against it, and eventually she heard him go away.

So enough was enough. This was becoming unbearable, and if the Doctor wouldn’t come to her, she would have to find him.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

River slumped onto her bunk. It hadn’t worked.

Oh, she’d found the Doctor. But there was someone else there, and the Doctor didn’t really react the way she’d expected; the last time he had been so loving and now...

...now there was nothing but exasperation in his voice, even when she’d more or less threw herself into his arms there was... well. It had not been what she had expected. She’d supposed he’d been busy, but five _years_? Even for him five years was cruel.

“Doctor Song.” Drat, it was that Octavian boy again, and River didn’t have the energy to deal with him now. She didn’t want to play their stupid little game of bait and response, and she didn’t under any circumstances want Octavian to see her cry.

And she felt she was about to cry.

“What is it?” Her tone was clipped, and she could see Octavian stiffen from the corner of her eye. But his voice remained even.

“I apologize for my earlier question,” he said through gritted teeth. It was clear he’d been told to apologize. But then he softened a bit as she didn’t respond. “Doctor Song, are you all right?”

 _Damnit, I knew there was a decent boy in there somewhere,_ River thought, and fought the tears. If he would only go away she could... “Fine, thank you,” she said as civilly as she could manage.

He stood there for a moment, looking at her, and then he went away.

And for the first time in as long as she could remember, River Song cried herself to sleep.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“River?”

River’s eyes snapped open, much as they had in the TARDIS, and she sat up. “Hello, sweetie,” she said automatically.

“Hello.” The Doctor crouched nearby, looking out from under his fringe, and he looked wonderful, but River tried her best to seem indifferent.

 _I needed you and you left me here..._  

He stood, taking her hands and drawing her to her feet. “River. I’m sorry -  _so_ sorry - that I didn’t come to see you before this, I--”

“Oh,” River interrupted as casually as she could manage. “Why should you, after all?”

“Because you’re River Song. Melody Pond. My wife.”

 _But you left me here._  

“Your  _wife_.” River heard how bitter she sounded, and hated herself for it, but he had _left_. The Doctor staggered back a step, as though she had struck him “It’s not like it’s a real marriage,” River heard herself say. “You married me to fix a timeline that I buggered up, and took me out a few times, and--”

 “It’s real to me!” he shouted, and then he buried his own face in his hands and choked out, “It’s real to me.” He sat down hard on her narrow little bed, head still in hands. “I’m so sorry, River, so very sorry. I never meant...”

“Look at me,” River said, and the Doctor shook his head, but was otherwise still. “Look at me!” she insisted, and he took a deep and shuddering breath and looked up at her.

And then he looked away.

“Stop it!” River cried, and the weeping inside threatened to come out. “I thought you... after Calderon Beta, and that planet with the purple moons, and the Sands of Shifting Tides, I thought  _we_... but now you won’t even look at me!”

“I can’t...”

“Can't what? Doctor, why won’t you look at me?” River’s voice was no longer hard and angry; she hadn’t the energy to maintain it.

Not if he didn’t care.

“I...” He choked out.

“Why did you marry me?”

“Because I wanted to.”

“It wasn’t...” She paused and looked away, then said quietly, “It wasn’t only to fix the timeline?”

 “It was not,” he confirmed gently. “If I had only wanted to fix the timeline, I could have simply taken your hand.” _And he suited action to word._

“Will you...” River said, and stopped “Will you tell me why you didn’t come more often?”

The Doctor closed his eyes. “Spoilers.”

“Oh.” _Then... he didn’t mean..._ River managed a shaky smile as he opened his eyes. “The same reason you came so seldom while I was at University?” she asked.

“Clever girl,” the Doctor said approvingly, and then, “You could come with me now.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The Doctor set the controls, giving Sexy her head. “Take us where you like, old girl,” he said, patting a screen fondly, and River found herself smiling at him.

“Now that’s the way to do it, sweetie,” River said. “Let the women do the driving.” She kept smiling at him as he rounded the console and tapped her lightly on the nose.

“I’m sorry,” they said in unison, and the Doctor continued, “There’s no need for you to be sorry, River.”

_But there is; I should know better and I mistrusted you..._

He looked down at her just as the TARDIS rotor whooshed and the ship shuddered hard, flinging them both into the jump seat in a tangle of limbs. “I’d say she wants us to kiss and make up, sweetie,” River whispered. “Shall we oblige her?” She smoothed his bow tie and curved her hand around the back of his neck, drawing his face down to hers.

And then she kissed him.

Later, after, they sat companionably together in the kitchen of the TARDIS. They wore matching dressing gowns of TARDIS blue, and River looked over her mug of tea at him. “It’s not really that bad, you know,” she said quietly, and the Doctor put down the fish finger he held. “I’ve got everything I need - except you - every day. And you when you can.” She smiled at him through the steam curling up from the mug. “I just have to remember that ‘when you can’ isn’t always under your control.”

“Tell me.” It was an invitation, and River smiled at him again as she told him about the young guard she thought fancied her, and the way they were always so perplexed when she came back after breaking out, and how they could never find the vortex manipulator because she kept it and the diary and the pistol in a little bigger-on-the-inside pocket she had made. “You made it yourself?” he asked, looking proud of her, and she smirked.

“‘I understand the physics’,” she quoted herself. “Remember? No,” she put up one hand to forestall his apology. “I understand the physics, and if anyone should apologise, it’s me; I know enough of the physics and the... the  _rules_ of time travel to know you can’t always be where you want to be. Sometimes you go...”

“Where I need to be,” the Doctor said. “Or where I am needed.” River nodded. “Well then,” he said, “What else?”

“One of the guards...” River said, and stopped, wondering how to continue. But she told him about Brother Octavian, feeling silly that a mere boy should distress her so, and then she noticed that the Doctor was uncharacteristically still. “You seem upset, sweetie. What is it?”

 “Spoilers.” His voice was hoarse. “Right then,” he said briskly, and clapped his hands. River gave him a sharp look, but let it go. “Shall we see where the old girl has gotten us to, River Song?”

“Perhaps we should change first, my love,” she said, laughing. “While you look very fetching in blue, I think the dressing gown would hamper running. Meet you at the front door?”

The Doctor nodded, and went to change his clothes.  _When they met at the front doors, his jaw dropped._ “River, you... the blue, and the lace and the... you. River, you’re  _beautiful_.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” she said, and pirouetted. The full skirt of the lacy blue dress flared to a scandalous height, and she loved it. “Well, my love? Shall we?”

“We shall,” he said, and offered her his arm. She accepted it, and together they stepped through the TARDIS doors and into a garish and tacky twentieth century Vegas wedding chapel, complete with Elvis at the pulpit. In tight powder blue and sparkles and sunglasses.

River clung to his arm, laughing far too hard to speak. “Are you married, River?”

“Are you asking?” She gasped it out between giggles.

“Yes,” he said seriously.

She sobered instantly. “Yes.”

“Shall we?” He gestured at the pulpit.

“Yes,” she said simply, and slid her hand from the crook of the Doctor’s elbow down to lace their fingers together. She tugged gently and led him to the front of the chapel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goes with Time Flows Like a River: The Nights.


	5. Segonax

_“Why do you always have handcuffs?”_

_~The Doctor, The Wedding of River Song_

 

 _Well, this is a pretty pickle,_ thought River Song as the Judoon tossed her into the stone cell on some planet or another. All she’d done was steal a treasure - she didn’t even know what it was yet - so she could study it in the cool flashing light of her cell in Stormcage. Blasted vortex manipulator had taken her to the time _before_ the cohort of that alien race died out, and she didn’t have the tools to repair it. So the family’s retainers had seen her, and given her description to the Judoon, and they in turn had caught her.

 _Lesson One,_ she thought. _Judoon are impervious to flirting._

If they had been human or any of a hundred different species, she could have flirted her way out of trouble, as she often did. But not Judoon. _I really must find a way to fix the vortex manipu_ … River’s train of thought was derailed as her ears popped.

Then they popped again, and her eyes widened with alarm.

_They’re removing the air._

The popping sensation stopped, and the vague hissing noise that she’d heard subliminally ceased, and River realised they weren’t removing the air entirely, but that she would be in serious trouble in a day or so if she wasn’t careful. She had best conserve energy, try to stay quiet and still. Oh, _why_ hadn’t she gotten hold of some psychic paper; she could have called the Doctor for help, and...

...and then she knew no more.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

River was brought out of her stupor by that familiar feeling in the back of her head, that feeling of home and family, the feeling that means _TARDIS_ to her. It was hard to breathe, but she heard someone in the next cell, so she focussed on that, and heard muttering, something about gravity concentration beams.

It was the Doctor; she was sure of it.

“Hello, sweetie.” _That took…_ River thought dimly… _rather more effort than I’d like…_

“River? Are you all right?” It _was_ him!

“Well,” she said, and took a laboured breath. “Can you scan... for atmosphere?”

“No, sorry, sonic’s on the blink. Hang on...” What was he doing, she wondered. “Hmm... levels are about Earth-normal, a trifle low on accessible O2 but you’re healthy, that shouldn’t... oh.” Peered at her through the bars of their shared cell window. “River, how long have you been here?”

 _Forever, it seems.._.“Don’t... know. At least... a day?”

“Air pressure is far too low for humans, you’ve got altitude sickness, badly. Bit odd you’re even conscious really, good on you.” _If I were human, I’d be dead,_ she thought, and struggled for air and to listen to him. “Headache, dizziness, fatigue. Shortness of breath, yeah, nosebleed? swollen feet and hands?” He looked over in alarm and she shook her head. “Good. There’s that at least. But we’ve got to get you out of here, into Earth normal pressure, and soon.”

River laughed on a sort of gasp. “That could be... harder than you... realise, honey. The...” The gasps were getting more frequent now, fewer words between them, as she fought for oxygen. “Judoon...” And she must have faded out, because what he said next made no sense.

“Sco no po tro frono jo konafo tohodo. Noso bo hopho koro tosokado! Boma tosa fopapo panojo!” He shouted it.“I am the Doctor,” he repeated in English.You have my friend and she does not have enough air. You must release her.”

_that’s nice, he says we’re friends..._

“She is a thief.”

_not… exactly..._

“If your orders were for execution, you would have killed her outright. She needs thicker air, and she needs it now. She is under _my_ protection.”

_aww… he really likes me..._

The Judoon grunted. “Maho,” the Doctor thanked it, and it grunted again. It opened the door to River’s cell, let the Doctor in, then closed the door behind him.

“The air will be thick,” it said grudgingly, and left.

“Earth sea level,” shouted the Doctor after it, “And slowly!” And then he turned to River, slumped against the wall. “Oh, River,” he said softly, shaking his head, and he knelt by her and felt for her pulse. River felt the Doctor shiver as though he were afraid, and then he sat heavily on the floor. He pulled River close with her head cradled against his chest, stroking his fingers through her hair.

River’s ears popped, and a sprinkling of pale gold regeneration energy wafted over her.

 _wait,_ she thought fuzzily  
 _regeneration energy, but  
that means he’s very..._

He bent to press his lips against her forehead. “I’ve got you, River. You’ll be okay, I promise.”

“Thank you, sweetie.” River’s voice was a whisper, and she tried to pull herself up even as her mind warned her of something she couldn’t quite catch, and then she was kissing him. Golden regeneration energy was trickling between their lips to swirl around them, and she could feel it tingling against her skin.

He whimpered into her mouth.

_oh, no, he’s too young!_

River gasped and pulled away, and they sat there, panting, eyes wide and locked, until the Judoon came back, a platoon of them this time. “I’m sorry,” River whispered, and she stood, pulling him to his feet and gripping his hand tightly. They faced the door and watched warily as the Judoon opened it.

“You will come with us to our employer,” said the Judoon directly to River. “He will decide your final disposition.”

“I’m coming too,” declared the Doctor. “We’ll work this out.”

The commander grunted. “I cannot stop you,” it said in a surly tone. “The Shadow Proclamation has decreed that we are not to interfere with the Doctor.”

“Then shall we, Doctor?” asked River. She held out her wrists to the Judoon commander.. “I assume you feel the need to restrain me, simple woman though I am.”

She heard the Doctor muffle a snort of laughter. Even this young he knew she wasn’t _simple_.

He reclaimed her hand, said “There’s no need for that,” but the Judoon commander handcuffed them together rather than argue about it.

When they left the building, the Doctor clutched at River’s hand, and she looked up at him, startled. Then her eyes narrowed as she took a deep breath and figured it out. She tried not to show it though, and her voice was casual when she said, “Do you know where we are, Doctor?”

The Doctor reached up with the hand cuffed to hers and pointed at the magenta-ringed planet hovering at the horizon. “See that? And smell the thinnish, arid atmosphere?” She nodded and gave a ghost of a smile “We’re on Segonax. Nice planet, bit dry perhaps, pretty skies. _Breathable atmosphere_.” She nudged him - _knock it off, Doctor_ \- and he gave her a little grin, but he quit baiting the Judoon.

They trudged across the sands for a long time, toward another building, and the Doctor bent his head toward her just as she began to get winded. “You okay, River?” he asked in a low tone. “I’ll make them stop if you need me to.” She shook her head.

“I’m okay. No permanent... damage.”

“If you’re sure...” he said doubtfully, and she threw him a smile as the Judoon commander barked an order and a Judoon hand clamped onto each of their shoulders. River’s knees buckled before she recovered, and they came to a stop in front of the building. The Judoon gestured at one of his soldiers, who pulled out a communicator and spoke into it.

A tall, thin being appeared before them. He did not even pause before he looked at the Doctor and said, “This is not the correct thief,” pulled out a weapon from somewhere, aimed at the nearest Judoon and fired.

The soldier disappeared without a sound, and the Judoon commander stared for a split second before it gathered its wits and said, as mildly as was possible for its species. “Not that one. This one,” and it shoved River forward. She stumbled to her knees in front of the tall being, their handcuffed wrists dragging the Doctor with her, although he remained standing. He squeezed her hand.

“She is under my protection,” he said as he helped her to her feet, exactly as he had to the Judoon. “What do you wish with her?”

“I do not wish anything with your female,” the tall being replied. “It is not the correct female.”

“How do you know?” the Doctor asked, and then yelped as River deliberately elbowed him in the ribs, “Oi! River, quit poking me!”

“Would you like to throw me under a bus too, sweetie?” she inquired in a syrupy-sweet tone, through gritted teeth. “Or just kill me yourself?”

“What?” _._ But then he got it. “Oh. Ohhh. Sorry, I... well, sorry.” 

The tall being sighed. “The female that stole my cohort’s  treasure is of a species that can survive with little air. This female...” he sneered at River, who went tense and still, “Is from the planet you call ‘Earth’ and is weak and puny. It became ill in little air after only one circuit of the Earth's moon around its primary. It is the incorrect female.” He made a dismissive gesture and River relaxed. _Oh bless, he doesn’t know_ …

“You showed us a hologram,” protested the Judoon commander. “We brought you the woman who looks like the hologram. And you killed one of my best men.”

“It is of no concern to me,” said the tall alien in that monotonous voice. “You have brought me the wrong thief and wasted my time. Run.” The Judoon gaped at him. The alien sighed again. “Run, puny Judoon. And take this with you.” He kicked at River’s feet, and she fell heavily to the sand, dragging the Doctor to his knees.

“But what shall we do with them?” asked the Judoon commander.

“Kill them. Keep them. It is the same to me. Now run.”

They ran. All of them, the Judoon immediately, and as soon as River and the Doctor were on their feet, they ran too.

After they were out of sight of the thin alien’s building, River began laughing as she ran. “Do you need anything back with the Judoon, River Song?” the Doctor shouted, and she shook her head.

_not when I have you, no matter how young..._

“Everything I need is right here, honey,” she panted.

“Good,” the Doctor said with evident satisfaction, and veered off the track the Judoon had left in their haste, toward where River felt that feeling of _home_ she always got from the TARDIS. He pulled River with him, connected at handcuffed wrists and at fingertips.

She could run like this, with him, forever.

When the TARDIS came into view, the Doctor snapped his fingers and they went barrelling into the blue box, laughing and falling over each other in their haste. They sank to the console stairs together, and he raised their joined hands and gasped out, “Should’ve gone back, they’ve got the only keys.”

River giggled. “Oh sweetie,” she said. “As though I couldn’t unlock this with my fingernail.” She turned her back on him, pulling his arm over her shoulder so she could inspect it closely, and undid the Doctor’s cuff.

And then she sighed. _There was nothing for it but to… right, well_ … she sighed again as she applied the lipstick.

There were tears in her eyes as she turned back and looked at him, and she said, simply, “I’m sorry, my love.” She kissed him once on the lips, hers trembling, and whispered against his skin. “Goodbye.”

After he slumped into unconsciousness, River Song pulled him into one of the jump seats by the console. She felt something like regret and suggestion and affection in the back of her mind where that feeling of TARDIS-home was, and she plugged her vortex manipulator into a socket on the console, and then she waited, watching this so-young version of her Doctor sleep.

When something on the console went _ping_! she took the VM unit out, whispered a thank-you to the old girl, and set the manipulator’s controls for her cell at Stormcage.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Analogous to Time Flows Like a River: Handcuffs


	6. Jim

_Oh! Jim the Fish! How is he?”_

_“Still building his dam.”_

_~River Song and the Doctor, The Impossible Astronaut_

 

The next time River saw the Doctor, he seemed much older, much more knowing. Perhaps not quite as old as he had been in Area 52 – she was fairly sure they were not married yet – but certainly older than at Segonax or the Bone Meadows or Easter Island; he was much closer to his age in Berlin and Luna from the look of him.

And from the hot look he gave her out from under his fringe.

 “Hello, sweetie,” River said as the Doctor sonicked the camera and the cell door.

“Come with me?” he asked her, and she smiled and grabbed her diary, took his hand and led him to his ship. _Home_. Slipping inside, she tugged him to the stairs and sat, patting the step next to her in invitation. She opened the diary.

“When are we, my love?” River asked, and smiled at him as he sat. She flipped through the book. “Have you done the Pyramid? Easter Island?” He shook his head. “You’ve done Berlin, I presume? And I hope...” She trailed off, feeling uncomfortable, and he put his hands over hers, closing the journal.

“I have,” he said firmly, “And that’s all we’re saying about that. So... how about oh, Demon’s Run?”

“I was only a baby,” she said slowly. “And I wasn’t even  _there_ , not really. But I remember bits of it quite clearly. My mother told me my father was coming to save us. You told me I shouldn’t call her ‘Big Milk Thing.’ You insisted that your bow tie was cool.” She gave a bitter half laugh. “I should be able to remember more. But it wasn’t  _me_ , and I was only a baby, and--”

River broke off and the Doctor put one arm around her. She leaned into it, snuggling her head on his shoulder, then turned it to smile up at him. “And you, sweetie? When are you?”

“I think I’m ahead of you for once,” he said. “So the Byzantium then, or the Pandorica? Those are both spoilers?” River made a little noise of assent and he continued, musing. “Right then. Asgard?” She shook her head. “Oh... Segonax?” He sounded like he was half-joking, but she nodded and watched his mouth open in surprise. “But...”

“It was real, my love,” River said, pulling away, “But I had to... well, there were spoilers then.”

“You  _lipsticked_ me!” His voice was accusing, and she flinched.

“I hated to do it, sweetie. You had saved me and it was, well,  _you_. But you were so  _young_ in this incarnation, and I couldn’t let you remember it as real, not then, and--” She broke off as he kissed her, and sighed in relief into his mouth as she realised the kiss meant she was forgiven, and that he knew her well enough for _this_. She kissed him back, and they toppled together onto the glass floor of the console room.

Later, they lay with limbs entwined, and she stretched luxuriously. “Hello,” she said, smiling, and he smiled back.

“Hello,” he returned, and then sat up as the floor shifted under them. The old girl was taking them somewhere, without warning, and he got up, pulling on his discarded trousers and heading to the console. River made an inarticulate protesting noise, but she got up, slipping her khaki dress on over her head and joining him.

“Oh,” River said as she read the console screen, pleased, “I’ve always wanted to visit Messaline. The archaeological opportunities there are... what is it, my love?” Her tone changed to one of concern as she felt him stiffen beside her.

“Um...” he said. “I - there may be spoilers here, but I don’t know for certain. I...” He was floundering, not knowing what to say, but River knew him well. She took his flailing hands in hers.

“Does it have to do with me?”  _The question was quiet_ _._ “I mean,  _directly_ with me, my love, or with my parents?” He shook his head.

“No. Nothing to do with you or Amy or Rory. Just me. And my...” The Doctor’s voice cracked and he took a deep and shuddering breath. “My daughter.” River squeezed his hand, silently encouraging him to continue. “She was a... not my daughter in the traditional sense. A genetic anomaly, and Donna took that and called her  _Jenny_. An opposite-sex clone of me, but so... so  _young_ , River. Like a child, that way.” He sighed, heavily. “She died though; she was killed there on Messaline, taking a bullet meant for me. She was my clone, my  _daughter_ , but... well, her hearts, they weren’t enough, not for her to regenerate, but she... she would have been amazing.” With the last word, his voice broke again, and River pulled him close, her mind racing with the implications as she patted his back.

When the Doctor subsided, River pulled away slightly, framing his long face between her hands. She kissed him lightly on the lips. “You’re the Man Who Never Would,” she said. “I should have guessed it was you. Not this you though, I think.” She smiled at him as he shook his head. “There’s a legend about him on Messaline. He led the Humans and the Hath out of the darkness to the Source, and taught them to work together, with the help of his handmaidens: the Healer, the Warrior, and the Archivist. I’m guessing that your Jenny was the Warrior, because in the story, she was slain protecting him. And he’s called that because he was too wise and too kind to exact revenge upon her killer.” She smiled at him again, sadly. “I’m sorry for your loss, my love. If you’re not all right, we can...” she trailed off, gesturing vaguely at the TARDIS doors, and he jumped up.

“I’m all right,” he said. He checked the chronometer. “It’s a couple hundred years since I was last here, and I’ve got a different face, so I don’t think anyone will know me.”  He took a deep breath, pulled River to her feet, and they walked together to the doors.

Outside, all was chaos.

The Doctor and River stepped out onto a platform above what looked like a pitched battle. River had her blaster out within seconds, but the Doctor put one hand on hers. “Stop!” he shouted, and when nobody did, he yelled, “I am the Man Who Never Would, and I command you to  _stop_!”

 _“_ So much for anonymity,” River muttered.

But they  _did_ stop. Most of them, anyway.

A man, heavyset enough to be a Slitheen in a human suit stepped forward. “How do we know that you’re him,” he said, in a reasonable tone. “You don’t look anything like him.” River shrugged and holstered her pistol but kept her hand on the pistol butt just in case.

“All yours, honey,” she said, and smirked at the Doctor. He pulled a face at her and turned to the crowd, which was now fairly quiet.

“Well,” the Doctor said to the big man, “I er... don’t die when I die. I change.” Nobody looked convinced, and River smothered a chuckle. “Okay, like the landscape here changed when I helped release the Source, years ago. It went from hostile to lush and green, yeah? So when my body is dying, I... change.”

“Because you’re the Man Who Never Would,” said the large man in a neutral tone, and his expression was equally so. Like he  _wanted_  to believe but didn’t quite dare.

The crowd began to jeer at him. “Of course  _you’d_ believe him, Sourceless Hath-lover,” shouted one, and “Fish-heads have no space for brains,” yelled another. Eventually, they were all babbling again, and River took pity on the man, who was getting more flushed by the moment, though he didn’t acknowledge the crowd.

“Come on, sweetie,” River murmured into the Doctor’s ear, and grabbed the stout man by the hand, drawing him up onto the platform with them. She snapped her fingers and the TARDIS doors opened. “Thank you, old girl,” said River to the blue box, dragging the men in behind her and closing the doors. She pushed them gently into adjoining jump seats.

“Now then,” she said to the portly man, “What’s your name, and why has the rest of your settlement turned against you?”

He sighed. “They call me Jim the Fish, because I’m trying to work with the Hath, like  _he_ said.” He pointed accusingly at the Doctor. “The rest of ‘em, they think if the Hath can’t have the dam over the river - they need it for their spawning waters - they’ll just dry up and go away! But that ain’t right; we’re meant to work together, like he said.” He gave the Doctor a look of combined awe and exasperation.

The Doctor grinned at him, and cracked his knuckles. “Well now,” he said, “Perhaps a little speech is in order...” He trailed off as River rolled her eyes at him. Looking at her beseechingly, he whinged, “Please, River? Just a  _little_ speech?” She laughed, and spoke to the man known as Jim the Fish.

“Do you really want a society based on  _that_ pouting face?” she asked.

“Well,” he said apologetically, “We kind of already do. Or we’re meant to. Although not really that face, it was the other face, the...” He threw up his hands. “Oh for the Source’s sake, this is beyond ridiculous!” But River had an idea, and she nodded.

“That’s it, Jim the Fish,” she said. “And you keep that name, because it makes you the most important man on this planet right now; Jim the Fish, the Man Who Would.” She laughed as both men gaped at her. “Don’t you see, sweetie? Jim, you swore by the Source, and I heard another call you _Sourceless_ ; do all your people do the same?”

He nodded. “The Hath do too,” he offered. “They even use the human word for it. It’s kind of hissy and slithery the way they say it, but, yeah, they do too.” River rubbed her hands together with glee.

“There you go, sweetie,” she said, turning to the Doctor. “They thought of you as a god - the Man Who Never Would - but they swear by their _real_ god - the Source. What if you weren’t a god, but a... an avatar of the true god? And Jim the Fish here is Its newest prophet. You have come back to tell the people to listen to him, to work with the Hath as you decreed years ago. It explains everything - why your aspect has changed, why your handmaidens have changed to only one, all of it. What do you think?”

The Doctor just grinned.

Jim the Fish stared at her in a kind of horrified admiration. “But... but I’m no holy man, I’m just a bloke who wants to do the right thing, I--” He broke off as River gave him a smacking kiss on the cheek, and he blushed hard.

“That’s what makes you the very best kind of holy man, Jim,” she said softly. “Humility. I rarely manage to pull it off myself, and as for him!” She jerked her head at the Doctor teasingly.

“Oi!”

But Jim the Fish, later, surprised them both. The Doctor was startled into a crow of delight when the very first act that Jim the Fish performed as the Man Who Would was to proclaim the river as a holy site, and the dam they would build there as a temple to the Source.

And to Its avatar, the Man Who Never Would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Analogous to Time Flows Like a River: Dam Good


	7. Silence of the Moon

_“You don’t know who I am yet…”_

_~River Song, The Time of Angels_

 

This Doctor didn’t know who River was, and she was old enough now, experienced enough as his wife, to admit to herself privately how much that hurt.

And how useless a feeling that hurt was. He couldn’t help it after all.

At first it didn’t matter; she got a message from him, an invitation in TARDIS blue, asking her to be at a certain time and place.

 _That_ Doctor knew her, but of course he couldn’t say anything, not with her parents there, because _they_ didn’t know. Not even when she shot that ridiculous hat off his head, blew on the barrel, and purred, “Hello, sweetie.” He looked – and _felt_ , somehow, in the back of her mind – old enough to be the same age as when he married her. The first time, on the pyramid, though Mum and Dad weren’t, not yet.

What was he up to?

They had a picnic, and she was right, his age was over eleven hundred. He still couldn’t manage a nice wine, but he was… well. He was her Doctor.

“You all need to stay back,” he was saying. “Whatever happens you do not interfere.”

River looked at the Apollo astronaut wading out of the lake and felt an atavistic shiver.

_I don’t know where I am  
_

It was an echo in her mind, but River hadn’t time to chase it down, because Amy – her mother – was running toward the pair on the beach. She had to stop Amy.

_‘you are forgiven.  
always and completely forgiven.’_

She had no time to break down; she had to be the strong one. River had to be strong for Amy and Rory and because the Doctor had wanted her to. She could grieve later, and with that thought the chill down her spine receded and she could function.

 _show no damage_  
show no damage  
show no damage

It was a chant in the back of her mind and it kept her sane through the next little while, shooting at the impossible astronaut, cremating the Doctor’s body.

And that fragile control slipped when she saw the Doctor next, in the diner.

How could he?

_How dare he?_

_somewhere in the_  
back of her mind  
she knew it was  
necessary but

 _He... he.._. She couldn’t help herself. River slapped him as hard as she could.

It didn’t matter that this him didn’t know; she was absolutely furious, livid, and she knew, she _knew_ it wasn’t really his fault, not this him. But it would be.

So she hit him.

And then _he_ was furious, she could see it in his eyes even as he said, in a remarkably calm tone, that he looked forward to whatever he would do to deserve it.

River hadn’t realized how much she had hurt him – not his face but his hearts – until he lashed out at her in the console room of the TARDIS. She tried her best to keep her expression impassive as he employed sarcasm to its best effect, blasting her over and over that she couldn’t be trusted, could never be trusted.

 _he doesn’t know_  
he can’t _know_  
he doesn’t know  
  
 _show no damage_  
show no damage  
show no damage

 _I am forgiven,_ River thought desperately, _always and completely. I will be forgiven because on some level, somewhere in time and space, he cares about me._

But her hearts ached until he started flirting with her again.

They flirted all over the country, even over the three months they were separated River was comforted by the knowledge that he would be there when she needed him.

And he _was_ ; she dove directly into the TARDIS’s swimming pool from that high-rise building. She’d known he would be there.

There was fighting, and flirting, and oh _bless_ , the teasing they always enjoyed, back to back as they fought off the Silents. The Doctor wasn’t above using that best weapon against them, either, and River revelled in it. And she was so _proud_ of him, genocide or no, for the way he and Canton had turned the Silents’ own weapons against them

Even when Mum – Amy – asked them to stop the flirting they couldn’t quite manage it.

River knew the Doctor was using the screwdriver to interrupt the Silents’ electrical build-up so she could shoot them. But she teased him about building cabinets anyway.

“You could come with us.”  _I’d love to, honey,_  she thought,  _but..._

“I escape often enough, thank you. And I have a promise to live up to. You'll understand soon enough.” 

“Okay,” he said in an offhandedly cheerful voice, backing away from her. “Up to you. See you next time. Call me!”

“What?” River felt a sinking feeling around her hearts. “That's it? What's the matter with you?”

He turned around, sauntered back. “Have I forgotten something?”

“Oh...” she said. “Shut up.” And she kissed him.

When she put her arms around his waist and moaned softly into his mouth, he broke away.

“Right,” he said. “Okay. Interesting.”

“What’s wrong? You act as though we’ve never done that before.”

“We haven’t,” he said.  _But Segonax? And Jim and... oh, god, I..._

“We haven’t,” she said automatically. It wasn’t a question.

“Oh, look at the time. Must be off. But it was very nice.”  _Nice?_ “It was good. It was... unexpected. You know what they say, ‘There's a first time for everything.’"  _But..._

And he ran away.

_But..._

“And a last time,” River heard herself say blankly.

 _‘show no damage’_  
her mind said as  
the blue box  
disappeared

But River just stood there, looking at – but not seeing – the place where it had been.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

When the TARDIS materialised in Stormcage moments (and it felt like eons) later, River’s eyes slowly focussed on him, and she felt herself smile, though it felt false. “Hello, sweetie,” she said, and if her voice nearly broke on the last word, neither of them mentioned it.

He swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on her face. “I’ve forgotten something,” he said quietly. “Something - some _one_  - important, so  _important_ , River, the most important person in the universe, and so very precious to me.” He began to walk toward her, eyes still on hers.

“Yes.” River whispered it, and a tear she hadn’t known was there dropped.

The Doctor kissed the tear away, and then he wrapped his arms around her, and just held on. He was crying too, and muttering apologies into her hair, until she pulled away to look at him. “Where have you come from, just now, before here?” she asked, and he swallowed.

“Demon’s Run,” he said, and rushed on. “I’m sorry, River, so sorry, I said terrible things to you, and before, in the console room, I--”

“Hush,” River interrupted, and put her fingertips to his lips. “None of that, not now.” He kissed her fingers and her breath hitched, then she reached up to pull him down, as she had a few minutes ago.

But before she could, he kissed her.

It was a gentle kiss, or it started that way. It swiftly grew into something more... primal, nearly desperate in intensity and  _need_. The Doctor broke away, ( _no!_ River thought wildly), but he laid his forehead on hers. “Come with me,” he said, and the flash of pain and loss disappeared. “I know you’ve a promise to keep, but well, she  _is_  a time machine. She would bring you back whenever you needed.”

“For a little while, my love,” River whispered, “But not forever. I can’t...”

The Doctor nodded. “Not one line,” he said, and smiled at her. “You said that to me once, asked me not to re-write one line of our time together. I won’t. River, I--”

“What about Amy?” River said in a quiet voice. “And Rory.”

“River.” The Doctor looked very serious now. “I told you; I had forgotten the most important thing in the universe. That important thing -  _you_  - trumps your parents’ wishes.” _But_.... “I love them, River, but I--”

She interrupted him by placing her lips on his again. “I love them too,” she whispered against his mouth, and deepened the kiss. She sighed and pulled him closer, and they stood there like that, his hands tangled in her hair, hers digging into his hips, snogging rather desperately, until she sensed something and pulled away. “The guards will be coming, my love,” she said, knowing her smile teased. “Shall we give them a chase? Or just ‘softly and silently vanish away’?” She laughed at him then, at the expression on his face. “You think I don’t know my  _Alice_? What kind of Englishwoman do you take me for?”

The Doctor sputtered in mock indignation, and tapped River lightly on the nose. “One who was born on an asteroid, in the fifty-second century, in the middle of nowhere. That kind of Englishwoman. Now run,” he finished, grabbing her hand as the prisoner-escape klaxon started blaring. She scooped up her copy of the blue diary, and ran with him into the TARDIS...

...which vanished away.

They collapsed, giggling, into the jump seat by the console, and she was kissing him again, breathlessly this time.

And then River Song made love to her Doctor, and taught him to love her in return.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

She could feel him watching her, and the sensation woke her. “Hello, sweetie,” she said, smiling, and then she opened her eyes and looked at him.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, and rested his head on her bare chest, listening to her hearts beating. “How is it I never knew? That you’re part Time Lord, I mean. I could usually... sense them.”

“Not enough for you to sense, I expect, unless you know exactly what you’re looking for. You can feel it now, can’t you?” He nodded against her skin.

“And the hearts? Oh, of course. You’ve got a perception filter, haven’t you?” He sat up.

“Well,” she drawled, “Not on me.” He blushed, and River laughed. “I do love you all flustered, my love,” she said, and then she reached out and pulled him down to kiss her. She smiled against his mouth and murmured his name as they made love for the second - or was it the third? – time that day.

“What will you tell them?” she asked the Doctor, as they sat companionably in the jump seat later, watching the Time Rotor as though it were a campfire.

He sighed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I... they--”

“--You  _could_  tell them,” River interrupted, and she braced herself for the worst.

“I know.” She felt unconvinced, and it must have shown. “I  _know_ , River.” He took a deep breath. “But I can’t think about it now.”

“Right then,” he said briskly, standing up and fiddling with console controls. “Where to, River Song? The sixth moon of Avalon is lovely this time of year.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Change in Perception


	8. An Interlude

_“Is River Song your wife? 'Cause she's someone from your future. And the way she talks to you, I've never seen anyone do that. She's kind of like, you know, ‘Heel, boy.’”_

_~Amy Pond, Time of Angels_

 

River and the Doctor were running.  It had been quite the adventure, though they never had made it to Avalon Six.

They burst through the doors of the TARDIS, and she dematerialised rather faster than usual, so as not to catch the Harrowkind Horde in her field. No sense in killing them all, since they didn’t have to. “Hi honey,” the Doctor said to his ship. “We’re home.” River found herself beaming at him, and drew him in for a kiss as they made their way to the console to fly her.

The Doctor shivered suddenly as though remembering something terrible, and River looked up at him, concerned. Throwing her a little grin, he flipped a lever and then went around the console to her, pushing buttons and twisting dials as he went. He tapped River on the nose and she smiled at him, then, without looking, flipped a switch of her own, and they hung onto each other, laughing, as the TARDIS spun off into the Vortex.

When they landed, the Doctor cracked open the door and peeked out. “Ooo...” he said, and River came to join him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her chin on his shoulder. “Columns, River,” he said, “What era? Ancient Greece?” She nodded against his shoulder and smiled up at him.

“One of my favourites, my love,” she said. “I’m going to change. The clothes always look very comfortable.” And she went off in search of the wardrobe, because the Universe only knew where it had got to.

She followed the warm feeling that was always in the back of her mind when she was aboard the TARDIS, ever since Berlin, and now she wondered idly why it hadn’t felt like home just before then, when she had been aboard the ship as Mels. Then she grimaced as she felt a sharp pain in her chest along with a feeling of indignation coming straight from the box herself.

 _right, yes. I did rather_  
shoot you, didn’t I,   
sweet? I am sorry...

The pain immediately ceased, and River relaxed as she realised the TARDIS accepted her silent apology. Just to hammer the point home, the wardrobe suddenly appeared immediately in front of her, and she laughed. “All right then, old girl,” she said softly, and stroked the door frame affectionately.

She changed into the lovely soft cotton clothing and wound a pretty headpiece through her hair, letting the curls spring free aside from that. Then she went to join the Doctor.

There were some very pretty young men standing about in the courtyard of the temple, and River approached them.

And they ran.

Well, bless, she wasn’t intending to hurt anyone, and why on Earth - and they _were_ on Earth; she’d checked - would they run from her?

Feeling just the tiniest bit hurt, but more exasperated than anything, River walked toward the temple. Just before she was wrestled to the ground - and not in a good way _or_ by her husband, for that matter - she heard an exclamation of distress. “It’s her!”

“And then I said, ‘My own personal Siren,’ River, and you’d think they’d _know_ that the Sirens were some of the most beautiful women in their own mythology,” the Doctor was saying earnestly, but River didn’t care. He wasn’t going to get out of this one easily, the stupid fool.

The Guardsmen had left them tied to a bronze ring protruding from the top of a large rock on a stone cliff jutting out into the bay, and River was working their hands free of the rope. “Mmph,” she said grumpily. The idiots had gagged her as though she was a… a…the rope came free and the Doctor turned to look at River.

And backed away at the slightly murderous glint she could feel in her own eye as she slipped off the gag. He continued to back away until his heels hit the edge of the seaswept cliff, and windmilled his arms to keep his balance.

River took pity on him, let out a theatrical sigh and grabbed him by his bow tie, hauling him away from the edge. She shoved him none too gently away from the cliff, although the shove wasn’t nearly as hard as it could have been if she had really wanted to kill him.

“What,” she nearly snarled, “were you _thinking_?”

“Umm... I wasn’t?” The Doctor said hopefully. “I wasn’t thinking about _them_ , River, or what they might think. I was thinking about you and your face and all that hair - I love your hair really - and... and... it just slipped out.” He hung his head. “I’m sorry.” He peeked up at her from under his fringe, and she fought a smile.

River relented, and smiled in earnest. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, “Why do I let you out alone? You could have waited for me, you know.” She reached up and smoothed his hair back from his face. “And stop pouting. Don’t think I didn’t notice you chatting up that high priestess.”

“River! I... she... I was just...” He was helpless against her.

 Good. 

“She’s a priestess of _Aphrodite_ , sweetie. Goddess of - ahem! - shall we call it love?” She grinned a wicked little grin at him. “Perhaps I should say that I noticed her chatting _you_ up.” The Doctor turned a bright sort of red, and gave her an evil grin of his own.

“River, you bad girl. Such a filthy mind. Shouldn’t like that... kinda do a bit.” River laughed and launched herself at him, throwing her arms round his neck. And the Doctor found himself wrestled to the ground for the second time in the last hour.

 

\--/--

 

River was restless.

And she really had no idea why. She loved being here with the Doctor, she loved the TARDIS and she knew that she could live up to her promise whenever the ship chose to take her back to Stormcage.

But she still felt restless.

Even the complicated Yogic stretches in the zero-gee room didn’t help, until the Doctor found her there. “Does it hurt?” he asked her curiously, and she laughed.

“Not in a zero-gee field, my love. And only marginally in Earth’s gravity.” She gathered herself into a ball and then starfished, legs and arms out, so she was facing him properly, slowly turning in place. “Care to join me?” she asked in _that_ voice, the voice that she knew made him flail about.

Not so much he couldn’t launch himself at her though, and he collided with her at lips and hands and hips, sending them both gently into the wall behind her as they kissed. “Oh my River,” he murmured against her mouth, “You are so very dear to me...”

Later, after, as they floated together in the centre of the space, River stretched against him. “So, my love,” she said, “That was a lovely interlude. But I expect you came to find me for a different reason?”

“I want to take you out, for your birthday.”

“My birthday,” River said, and it wasn’t quite a question. “But... we’re in the Vortex, you silly man; it’s... how would you know when my birthday is in _here_?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t,” he said “But the old girl would, and did, and told me it was your birthday. I’ve pamphlets for different places you might like to see.”

“You...” River choked slightly, and she threw her arms around him, sending them both careening around the room. “Oh, you dear, sweet man. Of course it’s my birthday, if the TARDIS says so,” she murmured into his ear. “But I’d much rather be surprised as to where.”

“All right then,” he said. “Are you in the mood for danger? Or something calmer?”

“I told you, my love,” she said, and shoved off a wall so they went sailing toward the door. “Surprise me.” She let him go, somersaulted neatly through the door and landed on her feet like a cat, leaving the Doctor to flounder toward the doorway. She did love to show off when he was all bumbly and flailing. “Oh, and my love? Do be sure to tell me whether to wear my heels or my gun. Or both.” She laughed and blew him a kiss.

River stepped out of the shower as she got that tickle in the back of her mind that meant the TARDIS was trying to tell her something without taking her over outright. _The old girl never has done since Berlin, when it was an emergency,_ she thought, and she could have sworn the ship _giggled_. But this time the tickle meant that they were going dancing, and as she did rather like her Doctor in that particular headgear, had ever since Berlin, River hurried to get ready.

Liz Eight threw a great party, the Doctor claimed, even by the standards of the twenty-sixth century. Dancing in the ballroom, hyper-pool in the billiard room, and four-dee Scrabble in the lounge. River had remarked that all they needed was a candlestick and they’d have a game of Cluedo, and a robot butler solemnly handed her a lovely silver one. And then went off in search of a revolver, a lead pipe, a rope, a knife, and a spanner.

It was at that point that _their_ giggling started.

Before that, it had been all tangoing with rose stems in their teeth, or River leaning suggestively over the billiard table - the slit up the side of the midnight blue dress was scandalously high and she knew how it affected her Doctor… and possibly more than a few other guests - or the word _Raxacoricofallapatorius_ on a quadruple-word score. When the scoring computer pointed out diffidently that _Raxacoricofallapatorius_ was a proper noun and therefore an illegal play, the Doctor explained earnestly - and very fast - that every word was / is / will-be a proper noun to some entity or other, somewhere in the multiverse. The scoring computer threw up its metaphorical hands at that, and retired to sulk in a corner with a synthesiser from the band.

And so the party broke up; with the band synthesiser-less, and the scoring computer offline, and only seven pool cues available, Liz Eight clapped her hands and declared the party over. _‘Thanks,’_ she’d said, _‘had a lovely time, thanks for coming, and now, Doctor,’_ (here her eyes had gotten hard) _‘would you and your lady-friend like to fix this mess? Or spend some time in that dungeon I had restored last week?’_

They chose the former.

The scoring computer was really very responsive to the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, and the robo-butler left off searching for Mrs Peacock. The synthesiser was still muttering to itself in little squawks in a corner, but Liz allowed as how that wasn’t their fault; she was sure she’d seen a Silurian with a perception filter scurrying out of the ballroom just before the synthesiser had its tantrum. Liz shooed them away and they ran, laughing and gasping, to the TARDIS.

And River was slapped in the face with the certain knowledge that it was time for her to go back to Stormcage… and that the Doctor’s next stop was Berlin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corresponds to Time Flows Like a River: Heel, Boy


	9. Are You?

_“He doesn't really know me yet. Now he never will.”_

_~River Song, The Big Bang_

 

“Give it to me. I’m entitled to phone calls!” _And if someone is asking for the Doctor, River Song thought, asking here… then he needs me._

She _was_ very sorry, but she kissed the new guard anyway. Oh, but Octavian would be angry with her when he found out; he’d gotten even less flexible as he’d aged and moved up in rank. He’d be so angry. But it had to be done.

The Doctor needed her.

Liz Ten knew it, the instant that River showed her the painting. And Dorium - funny blue man, she remembered from so long ago; he’d been there (or would be there) at Demon’s Run, and that’s all she remembered of him. Although she did wonder which handsome Time Agent he’d gotten the vortex manipulator - ahem! - off of. She’d known a few of them, after all, and she knew that one calling himself Jack Harkness - and who was reputedly _very_ handsome as well as rumoured able to regrow a hand - was important to the Doctor.

And Dorium would forgive her the micro-explosives; the was sure of it. She amused him and that counted for a lot with a man like Dorium.

It was brilliant how far in time and space a good vortex manipulator could take a girl. And how well her blaster could cut into the side of a cliff. She finished her message and patted the blaster affectionately, and then set her vortex manipulator for the coordinates she’d carved into the cliff… less a few days so she’d have the Roman legions firmly under her control before the Doctor got there.

He didn’t seem particularly impressed by her ingenuity, but River kept up the breezy, flirty banter anyway. _He’s too young,_ she thought; _he doesn’t really know me yet. Not well. It was different at the Bone Meadows; we were both young then_ …

He was willing to work with her though, unlike the way he had been - or would be - in Utah. They found the Pandorica together, in spite of River being distracted by Mum and her spoilers, and Dad’s absence. River was careful to say nothing at all about Rory, because if Amy wasn’t mentioning him and neither was the Doctor, there might be spoilers.

Oh, _bless_ , River hoped Rory was all right. And not only for her own sake, but for _his_ and for Amy’s and…

Even playing with the Roman commander wasn’t enough to amuse her in this situation.

River looked at the scanner and blanched inside.

 _show no damage_  
show no damage  
show no damage 

The Pandorica itself had been bad enough, but _this…_ oh, bless, they were all here, everyone who’d ever hated the Doctor. All at once River understood why he’d had so much trouble believing that he was loved up there on the Pyramid at Area 52. _Oh, my poor love,_ she thought, and wanted to curl up in a ball and cry for him. No time for that, though ( _show no damage_ ), and she kept her voice as level as she could. “Daleks. Cybers. Sontarans.” She felt her eyes widen as she read the rest of the list from the screen of her little scanner. “Terileptil. Slitheen. Chelonian. Nestene. Drahvin. Sycorax. Hemogoth. Zygon. Atraxi. Draconian.”

He sent her off to the TARDIS to bring her back, and no matter how worried she was, how upset, some small part of River thrilled that this young Doctor did trust her to fly his beloved ship.

But there was something wrong with her; the TARDIS didn’t feel right in the back of River’s mind as she usually did. She was welcoming, but there was a… a stutter to the feeling of warmth and family that River always felt from her.

“What are you doing? What’s wrong?” She didn’t really want to know. But the TARDIS needed her, and the Doctor needed her, and she absolutely refused to let either of them down.

_Oh, Amy…_

It was all a trick, taken from Amy’s mind and memories, all a _trap…_ a trap for the Doctor.

And for River, to keep her away from him so she couldn’t protect him, something was using the TARDIS to keep her from getting to him, she…

 _exploding…_  
over and over again…  
I’m sorry, my love…

 _He doesn’t know_ , River thought desperately as the explosion happened for the seven thousand millionth time, _and he needn’t know._ It would only hurt him to know that she knew, that she was awake and aware of all those millions upon billions of explosions as the TARDIS kept her in a time loop to keep her safe.

It would have driven a fully human woman mad. Or she would never notice. But a part-human, part-Time Lord woman… well… River _knew_ , experienced all the explosions.

And remembered them.

But she couldn’t stop them.

“I’m sorry, my love.”

“Hi honey,” the Doctor said, “I’m home.”

 _show no damage_  
show no damage  
show no damage 

She must not cry. She must not show damage. She absolutely must _not_ let him know how terrified she had been.

For him, for Amy, for Rory.

And for herself.

So River Song did the only thing she could do. She threw her husband the smirk she knew drove him wild, and she pretended to check a wrist watch.

“And what sort of time do you call this?”

He offered her his arm, and she took it, and she chose not to mention how his hand trembled as he rested it on hers.

Or perhaps she didn’t notice over her own trembling.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Are you married, River?”

“Are you asking?” She kept her voice warm, and flirtatious, and ever-so-slightly mocking.

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“No,” he said, helplessly. “Hang on. Did you think I was asking you to marry me or asking if you were married?”

“Yes.”

“No, but was that yes or yes?”

“ _Yes_.”

“River. Who are you?”

“You're going to find out very soon now,” she heard herself say. “And I'm sorry. But that's when everything changes.”

_He won’t find out in Utah. But for him it will be soon, a matter of months._

_Nine months from tonight, counting linearly._

And she pushed a button on her vortex manipulator and reappeared in her cell at Stormcage. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parallel to Time Flows Like a River: Neverspace


	10. Angels and Aliens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Analogous to Time Flows Like a River: A Picnic at Asgard

_“I just climbed out of the Byzantium. You were there. So young.”_

_~River Song, The Wedding of River Song_

It wasn’t until they compared diaries and he said he was fairly new that River Song let herself feel the loss, and then only for a moment. Before that it was all talking Octavian into letting her try to earn her pardon, and dancing – not in that way – with Alistair, and snarking with her beloved over the brakes on the TARDIS.

But this was heartsbreaking.

Not only did he not know who she was – and he’d apparently forgotten Segonax and the Bone Meadows hadn’t happened for him yet – he didn’t even seem to _like_ her.

And oh _bless_ , that hurt.

 _show no damage_  
show no damage  
show no bloody damage 

But there was no time to mourn the loss, because Amy – Mum, though she didn’t know it – there was something wrong with Amy.

And River wasn’t sure she could trust Octavian to keep her spoilers a secret. He’d always admired the Doctor, for the – good heavens, for over thirty years she’d known him – and she just couldn’t trust him.

River would never _like_ Octavian, but she could respect him after all these years. He would do as he said he would do, because he was a man of... honour, she supposed. A good man, but as inflexible as a fixed point in time. She still wasn’t sure he could stop himself from spilling the beans to the Doctor.

Octavian was dead, his neck snapped by one of the Angels, and no matter how much mutual dislike there had been between them for decades, River hadn’t wished him _dead_.

He’d been a good man, and he was dead and it was her f... River felt hysteria building but she hadn’t time to indulge herself; Amy needed her.

“Like me. For instance!” The Doctor was lashing out at her, but it was worry for Amy and grief and guilt for Octavian and his men, and River _knew_ that.

But it _hurt_.

It was worth it, though, because even this young he’d said, “River Song, I could bloody kiss you!”

She couldn’t resist saying I told you so anyway.

And for once they parted on a – if not precisely happy – at least a positive note.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 _Oh, for heaven’s sake,_ River thought with exasperation. _Isn’t this a fine little mess?_

She’d come here to see if she could find the Doctor – the Ood had sent her with a message. At least someone in the universe trusted her where the Doctor was concerned, though it might have been for other reasons. The church had been very apologetic, giving her a pardon at once – and giving her a living stipend backdated for decades – when they realised that the man she had allegedly killed didn’t exist. In any database anywhere. Or anywhen.

The little grey aliens living here had taken her pulse pistol and her vortex manipulator, and she had only saved the psychic paper by luck. They looked so sweet and so harmless that she’d been taken by surprise, and even now it didn’t seem that there was any malice in them. Just curiosity, and River Song certainly understood _that_.

So she scrawled a note - _Hello, Sweetie, could use some help. xo_ _–_ on her psychic paper, and it took almost no time at all for the old girl to materialize just outside the crowd of little grey beings surrounding River.

The TARDIS felt different in the back of River’s mind, and she couldn’t quite place what the difference was.

Until the door opened and he stepped out. Taller, thinner, darker-haired. Oh bless, it was a different Doctor, younger… what if he didn’t know her, had never met her?

“Hello, Sweetie,” River Song said, trying to keep the surprise off her face. “Could use some help here,” she said in as casual a tone as she could manage, “As I don’t speak their language. They seem friendly, and I wouldn’t want any of them hurt.” She nodded at her pulse pistol, into the barrel of which an Asgardian was staring with wide black eyes.

The Doctor dropped the hamper he held and waded into the throng, patting heads and speaking softly to them in what must be their own language. When he got to the one who was now holding River’s pulse pistol, he gently took the gun away, holding it delicately between forefinger and thumb.

“Yours, I believe, Professor Song?” asked the Doctor, leaning over several Asgardians to hand her the pistol. In his haste to get rid of it, he nearly fumbled as he dropped it into her hand.

_So formal, my love?_

He tried to smile at her over the Asgardians’ smooth grey heads, but it looked false, forced.

“Don’t do that, Doctor,” River said quietly, looking down at the gun she held. “You needn’t hide, not from me. If you could retrieve my vortex manipulator for me as well, I’ll leave you to it.” She looked up in surprise as his hand clamped around her wrist. She cleared her throat. “What is it, my love?”

 “Will you stay, Professor Song? I’ve a picnic hamper.” He sighed. “We seem to have come across an Asgard kindergarten; they’re not usually this intrusively curious.”

“I thought they were clones,” River said, and felt herself smile. “Why would they have different ages?” The Doctor stared at her.

“Not for several hundred years yet,” he said, and pulled out his screwdriver to scan the area.

The nearest baby Asgardians leapt at him to investigate this new and interesting thing. He read the scan and put it away, much to their evident disappointment. “Yes,” he said, “We’re quite early for that. But it’s just about teatime. Shall we?”

He crooked one elbow, and she waded through the children between them, snatching her VM unit on the way, and took it. She holstered her pistol, gave a sharp look at the little grey being trying to unholster it, and found herself softening as it whinged at her.

The Doctor disentangled the three Asgardian children from the hamper and held it out of their reach. They all chittered at him. “What are they saying, Doctor?” River asked, and he listened for a moment. “And why did they find me so fascinating?”

“Your skin is pink, you’re nearly twice the height of their adults, and you have hair.”  He shook his head. “And mostly they’re just pleading with you to show them your toys... and your hair.”

“But you’re taller than I, and you’ve got nearly as much hair.”

“They saw you first. You’re their human.”

“I’m...” River trailed off. _Oh, my love, if you only knew._

The Doctor smiled down at her.

She pulled her hand away from his arm and grabbed the picnic hamper from him, and ran ahead, uphill to a small grove of bright purple feathery-looking trees.

“Professor Song,” the Doctor began as he reached her, and he saw her flinch before she could control the reaction. What is it?”

River shook her head. “Nothing, sweetie. Spoilers.”  _Oh, just that I’m not a professor yet, I loved you and hated you and killed you, you don’t really know me. Nothing._

The Doctor took a sip and asked, “Well, Professor, what  _can_ you tell me? Anything? Where you got your degree in archaeology? What century you’re from?” Earth or somewhere else?”

“Luna University.”  _That much I can say._ “The when is complicated. So is the where.”

“Ah,” he said. “Wibbly wobbly then?”

“And timey wimey,” she agreed.

The Doctor began to laugh, and it sounded like it was for the first time in months, as the laughter made him choke on his lemonade. River pounded him on the back, and then he wasn’t laughing anymore, he was crying, and she felt as though her hearts would break. She found herself holding him, rocking back and forth, murmuring nonsense into his hair until finally the sobs became hiccoughs, and the tears were quieter, regretful rather than anguished. “Hush now,” she said, and he shuddered, pulling away.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor whispered. “I’m so,  _so_ sorry.”

River managed a smile.

“It’s all right, sweetie,” she said, and reached up to stroke the side of his face. He leaned into the touch and her hearts clenched. “I’m sure it’s been a long time coming.”

He nodded, and River heard a strange sort of snuffling noise. River put her arms around him and whispered in his ear. “We’ve a guest at our picnic.”

There was a tiny Asgardian butting at her hip with its head. She reached out carefully with one hand and stroked the top of its head, then let it nuzzle at her palm. The Doctor looked at her face and seemed to decide it was his go to reach out and touch her cheek. She looked up. “Look at it, Doctor,” she whispered, gesturing with her chin at the baby. “It’s such a dear little thing. What does it want, can you tell?”

The Doctor listened carefully to the infant ramblings and blushed. “Well... they  _are_ mammals - marsupials, really. It’s not very coherent at this age, but I’d say it’s getting hungry. You stay here with it, and I’ll look for its mum.” River picked the baby up and cradled it, then pointed with her free hand.

“I think mum is looking for it,” she said, and the Doctor turned to look at the Asgardian walking their way, scanning the ground as though looking for something lost. He shouted to her in what must her own language, and she straightened and headed straight for them. “Doctor,” whispered River urgently, “Would you explain to her please? I don’t want to frighten a baby or its mother. I...” she trailed off as the baby started to babble and the adult answered it.

The Doctor smiled at River. “It’s all right. Brilliant, really; the baby can tell its mum what’s happened. Just now it’s whinging that you ignored it when it asked for food.” The adult Asgardian gently took her baby from River and tucked it into her pouch. She said something in the chittering language of her people, and the Doctor smiled at them again. “She thanks you for caring for her young, in spite of your er... ungainly limbs and uncomely head covering. Her words, not mine,” he finished hastily, as River levelled a  _look_ at him. He grinned at her, and she smiled back.

“Hello,” she said, and he giggled.

“Hello.” He seemed unable to tear his eyes away from hers, until they heard something that sounded very like a snort coming from the Asgardian mother. He glanced at her, and blushed again.

And then she went away with her baby, leaving them on the top of the little hill under the purple feathery trees that were like something out of Seuss. River looked at him, and the Doctor took her hands and drew her to her feet. “Who are you, River Song? Who are you to me?” She smiled at him and shook her head.

“You know I can’t say, Doctor. Please don’t push me.” She heard her own voice, high and strained. “At any rate, sweetie...” She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek, chastely. “The Ood are looking for you, in the forty-third century. I’m sorry, my love, but it’s time for you to go.”

“I don’t want to go.” He sounded like a sulky child. “I  _won’t_ go.”

River shook her head again. “You will. Not today, perhaps, but when the Ood want you, they will summon you. It has been written.”

“It can be rewritten.”

“No,” River said sadly. _Not one line._ “It can’t. I’m sorry, my love.” She pressed a button at her wrist, wrenched herself away from the Doctor, and found herself in her room at Luna University.

 


	11. Forgiven

_“When one's in love with an ageless god who insists on the face of a twelve-year-old, one does one's best to hide the damage.”_

_~River Song, The Angels Take Manhattan_

 

River Song stood at the console, looking up at the screen because she had taken her shoes off.

 _Just an ordinary day with my husband,_ she thought, _except that it’s not._

Because her parents were gone, she had encouraged Mum to go and to be with Dad, and her husband had fallen utterly apart.

This was not his usual happy-face-over-sad-eyes; this was absolutely devastating.

And she could do nothing to help him, nothing above watching the Angel that had sent Amy back while he wept in mingled grief and fury.

River had already hurt him once that day, she’d seen it in his eyes, and she would _not_ hurt him again by falling apart. By showing him the damage. It would hurt him if he saw it, so she must keep it in, just as she’d said there on the steps.

_show no damage_

The Doctor sat, facing away from his wife.

“River.” _Don’t, my love,_ she thought, _or I won’t be able to contain it.._. “They were your parents. Sorry. I didn't even think.”

“Doesn't matter,” she said shortly.

“Course it matters.”

“What matters is this, Doctor,” River heard herself say almost fiercely. “Don't travel alone.”

“Travel with me then.”

“Whenever and wherever you want,” she said gently. “But not all the time. One psychopath per TARDIS, don't you think?” She took a deep and shuddering breath, but she didn’t think he heard.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Later, after River’s suggestion of an Afterword had sent the Doctor running off to get a measure of peace, she finally relaxed enough to _feel_. She felt a wash of grief and sympathy in the place in the back of her mind that meant TARDIS to her, and instinctively she followed the feeling, playing Hide the Thimble with it, and rounded a corner into a quiet room she had never seen before. She sat on a small bed against one wall. “Is this where you want me, old girl?” River stroked the wall beside the bed, and felt a warm wash of agreement and a feeling of home, even as the room began to change.

The walls got darker, the bed narrowed and hardened, and then the storm started outside the room. _Oh, bless,_ River thought, _if I didn’t know better I’d think you were punishing me, old girl. Why here?_ But the feeling strengthened, a feeling of safety and comfort, and _home_ , and finally River realised that that was exactly the case.

Stormcage had been home to her for decades, after all. Where better to cry it all out, where no-one could see the damage?

But once she started, she was unable to stop, and she slid off the bed onto the floor, curling up and sobbing into her knees, grieving for her parents, and all the other times she hadn’t had the time or the leisure - or the privacy - to weep. She cried for the Doctor as he had been at Asgard and just a few hours ago in the graveyard, and she cried for the boys lost to the Angels on Alfava Metraxis. She even cried for Bishop Octavian, and for her own lost childhood.

“River.”

River went very still.

“River?” He crept closer, dropped gracelessly to the floor beside her. “River... please.” _Don’t, you can’t see me like this; you aren’t meant to see the damage!_ “Come on,” he continued, and reached out a hand to touch her hair.

Without looking, River grabbed his wrist in a vise-like grip. “Don’t.” It was all she said, but the fiercely controlled tone clearly told him she didn’t want to be touched.

He tried to pull away, give her space, but she clung to his arm over the tweed.

A long time later River stirred. She didn’t look up, didn’t move really, but the tense muscles in her back relaxed just slightly, and she took a deep breath. “How did you find me?”

“She takes me where I need to be,” he said gently. “Or where I am needed.”

River felt herself tense again, not liking the idea that he knew she needed him, and the Doctor sighed. “Come on, River. Let’s go somewhere... friendlier than this.” He shivered as a particularly loud peal of thunder roared, and stood up stiffly, using her grip on his wrist to tug her gently to her feet.

She still couldn’t look at him, but she did not let go; she followed him to a warmer, cosier room several corridors over. He drew her down to a blue-upholstered sofa, and carefully withdrew his hand from hers to tuck a soft blanket around her waist. Sitting next to her, he took both her hands in his. A warm and loving - if slightly exasperated - sensation washed over River from the TARDIS, and she knew the old girl wanted her to let go, let him look after her this once.

She didn’t know if she could.

“I...” The Doctor cleared his throat and began again. “I’m sorry, River.”

“What for,” she heard herself say dully, not precisely as a question, and her voice was as rusty as his.

“For... for everything. For whatever I’ve done to make you...” He choked slightly. “Whatever I have done to make you mistrust me so. God knows you’ve no cause to trust me, I’ve caused all that damage you say you’ve got but I’ve never seen it, and your parents, and, and River I am so _sorry_ , I... please, won’t you trust me, I--”

He broke off as River looked up at him. “I trust you,” she said simply.

“Do you?”

“Of course.” River knew she sounded confused. “I trust you with my life.”

“But not with your hearts.” She stared, and the Doctor went on. “I understand how it was when I was young, more than two centuries now. You couldn’t show me the vulnerable side - not on purpose, though I saw glimpses - for fear of spoilers. But now...” He trailed off.

River took a deep but ragged breath and freed her hands from his. Reaching up to smooth his bow tie, she pulled him toward her by the back of his neck, and then she kissed him. “I trust you, my love.” It was a whisper echoing through both minds, and her hands wandered up to settle into his hair, brushing against his temples. He gasped against her lips and then went still.

The images she fed him were fuzzy, as though seen through a perception filter you knew was there. She couldn’t control them, she hadn’t the training.

_Little grey aliens, and relief at the sight of the bluest blue ever, and momentary shock at the sight of wild dark hair and eyes so dark they were nearly black, and a picnic hamper and those sad black eyes over a glass of lemonade, and a sense of incipient loss and undefined longing, and her love (but not her love) weeping in her arms._

_A long black dress and a pair of red heels, the cold and unbending (but somehow good) face of Bishop Octavian, dislike and resentment but grudging respect, a flash of red hair and fair skin and scared hazel eyes, and terror and worry for my mo... for Amy. The Angels have her, they’re inside her mind, and he doesn’t know me, he shouts at me, he hates me, I want_ my _Doctor..._  

The images came faster now, from further back in her time stream, and they were getting mixed up with phrases and physical sensations as River’s emotions overwhelmed her shaky control.

_‘Now I love a bad girl, me. But trust you? Seriously?’_

_‘...he won’t have the faintest idea who I am. And I think it’s going to kill me.’_

_‘Give ‘er hell...’_

_‘Rule One - the Doctor lies.’_

_‘You embarrass me...’_

_‘Like me, for instance!’_

_‘I’m sorry. But that’s when everything changes.’_

_‘...and a last time...’_

_‘It can be rewritten!’_

_‘Amelia’s Last Farewell’_

_‘He doesn’t really know me yet. Now he never will.”_

 

_a slap, an angry look, the pain of him not knowing her_

_‘Oh Doctor, you and your secrets. You’ll be the death of me.’_  

River broke the link. She sat, her face dry but her eyes full of tears, and stared at him, a wordless apology echoing between them. She took a deep breath and said, softly, “I’m sorry, my love. I only meant to show you the Byzantium and Asgard, to show you why I hi... why I was so lonely for a you who _knows_ me, who trusts me, why I mistrusted _any_ you. Not all... that.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he replied dully.

“‘Course it matters,” she said, mimicking his earlier words. He shook his head. “It _does_ matter, sweetie. You didn’t know. Here,” she said, and pulled him to her once more. “Let me show you the other side of it.” She felt the TARDIS join this link, helping, augmenting her instinctive control. This time the images were clear, hyper-bright with the clarity of loving memory, and the Doctor gasped again.

_‘’Hello, sweetie.’_

_‘...the most important person in the universe, and so very precious to me...’_

_‘Don’t you touch her! Do not harm her in any way!_

_‘Are you asking?_

_‘Look into my eye...’_

_‘She will be amazing...’_

_‘It’s real to me!’_

_‘I absolutely trust him.’_

_‘Hi, honey. I’m home.’_

_‘It must hurt...’_

_‘...my friend River, nice hair, clever...’_

_‘Come with me.’_

_‘She is under_ my _protection!’_

_‘...shouldn’t like that. Kinda do a bit.’_

_‘My own personal Siren.’_

_‘I could give some back.’_

_‘The woman who married me.’_

_‘Never run when you’re scared. Rule Seven. Please.’_

_‘I’ll make it a good one...’_

 

 _...a kiss, a light tap on the nose, the hot-when-he’s clever look, and the running,  
always running hand in hand with the Doctor. _ My _Doctor, my love..._

 _‘Always and completely forgiven...’_  

They broke apart, and this time River didn’t bother to hide the tears. “You see, do you see, my love? For every bad thing, there’s a good, or more than one. Always.” She sniffled and put her hands up to his face, wiping his cheeks where the tears had spilled over and smiling at him. “Always.” This time it was a whisper, and she drew him down for a kiss.

“I’ve hurt you so much,” the Doctor said into her mouth, and she broke the kiss gently, smiling into his eyes.

“And helped me so much.”

He shook his head. “ I’ve pushed you away, _hurt_ you because I was scared.”

“And you forgave me, and you loved me, even as I killed you,” River said softly, pulling back to look at him. “Twice.”

The Doctor didn’t deny it. He took her hand, the one he’d kissed as he healed it, and managed a shaky smile. “Will you come with me, River Song, Melody Pond?”

“Of course I will,” she said. “You watch us run.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Equivalent to Time Flows Like a River: Come Along Pond


	12. The Last Wedding of River Song

_“Oh, Jim the Fish!”_

_~River Song, The Impossible Astronaut_

 

Run they did, together, hand in hand. Neither acknowledged aloud that they were running from the heartache of losing loved ones; they just ran. They played tourist over all of time and space, except those times that were forbidden them, by history or circumstance. And the big blue box aided them in running away from the pain.

They finally made it to the sixth moon of Avalon, which was everything they had hoped. They checked on the progress of Jim the Fish’s dam and discovered that it had been finished for years. When Jim hustled them away from his people River realised there must be spoilers – Jim was far too nice a man to push them away without a very good reason. They had several of the Lizzes marry them again and they brought their total wedding count to forty-nine.

The Doctor dropped River off at her rooms at Luna University now and then, to fulfil the requirements of ‘not all the time,’ or so she could teach a class or take a group of students on a field trip. There was one young woman - Anita - that she had taken under her wing, and about whom she felt rather maternal. Because of Anita, River was always willing to leave, knowing she could come back. She rather adored the young woman.

It was idyllic, even with the grief in the back of their minds and hearts, and then River came sauntering into the TARDIS, excited to the point of giddiness about a field trip sponsored by the Lux family. A trip to the biggest library in the universe, and two of her best students and the university pilot - Anita and a couple of guys called Dave - were coming along.

It took her a moment to notice that the Doctor did not seem pleased for her; in fact he looked rather shocked at the prospect. “But...” he said, and trailed off, staring at her.

“Sweetie?” River was all concern. “Are you all right?” She reached out one hand to pat his bow tie and he flinched.

“Oh, forgot something,” he said hoarsely, and turned on his heel to go back to the TARDIS.  He went inside, for a moment, then left the ship, turned and walked slowly back to River’s doorstep.

“What did you forget, my love?” River was still cheerful, excited about this field trip.

“Our itinerary,” the Doctor said, grinning. “If you don’t have to leave right away.”

She shook her head. “Several weeks before the Lux family will be ready to go, though I’ll have to come back for a day or so to supervise the packing,” she told him cheerfully. “Not that it matters to you and the old girl.”

“Then how would you feel about making the weddings a nice round fifty? I thought maybe we could ask Jim the Fish...”  he trailed off.

“What a lovely idea, sweetie,” River said, and kissed him.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Just the thing,” said Jim the Fish, The Man Who Would, with satisfaction as they explained their request in his office. “The wedding of The Avatar of the Source and his beloved handmaiden, to consecrate the dam and the temple on it!”

 _Excuse me?_ River thought incredulously, _I think not._ “I am  _not_ ,” she ground out, “merely his ‘handmaiden’.” She glared at both men, and Jim made a helpless sort of gesture toward the Doctor.

“No,” the Doctor said hastily. “I’m sure we can find suitable titles that will be accurate and will mean something to the people of Messaline.”

“Yes,” agreed Jim with equal haste, “And on that note, would you be amenable to explaining the needs of the ceremony to my high priestess? She’s a very  _good_ priestess, but she knows nothing of any culture save her own.” River gave him a short nod, and - collecting the priestess on her way - went back into the TARDIS.

Once there, the high priestess turned to River and made a sort of complicated bow, then sank gracefully to a sitting position on the transparent floor. “It is a lovely ship,” she bubbled, and the TARDIS translated. “Is it an old one?”

“Very old,” River agreed; “She is much older than my fiancé.” She wondered whether this meant something in Hath culture, and the priestess did not disappoint.

“Ah,” she said contemplatively, giving the floor a little pat. “Age is to be venerated.”

 _Then you’ll be thrilled to marry my Doctor and me,_ River thought, _even if he does look twelve._

“Now,” the Hath woman said, “Shall we talk about important things? Like your wedding to the Man Who Never Would in his other Form? And the clothes, of course.”

River laughed. Apparently some things were universal.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

River Song paced slowly up the aisle formed by the crowds of people on either side. She wore high formal Hath finery, in iridescent purples and greens, in a sort of opposite pattern to those of the Haths’ natural scales.

The people of Messaline cheered as River walked steadily toward the platform on the dam where the Doctor and Jim the Fish stood. Small children - both human and Hath - trailed behind her, scattering rose petals and mother-of-pearl shell fragments as they went.

When River ascended the stairs to the platform atop the sacred dam, the cheering quieted to a low murmur. She came to the Doctor and reached up to loosen his bow tie. “We’ll need this, sweetie,” she said simply. “A strip of cloth about a foot long.” And she pulled it out of his collar and wrapped one end around her hand, held it out to him. He wrapped the other end around his hand, leaving his fingers free to intertwine with hers.

They stood staring at one another, inches apart, as Jim the Fish, the Man Who Would, began to speak. He spoke of the freeing of the Source to work her miracle across the planet, and of love enduring across time and space, and of working together as Hath and human. He spoke of courage and intellect and joy. And then he said, in ringing tones, “Who gives this man, the Avatar of the Source, the Man Who Never Would, the Healer of Worlds, to his River Song?”

“We consent and gladly give,” said the assembled thousands of humans of Messaline, and River smiled into the Doctor’s eyes.

“And who gives this woman, Handmaiden of the Doctor, Bespoke and Beloved, Warrior and Scholar, to her Doctor?”

“We consent and gladly give,” bubbled the assembled thousands of Hath of Messaline, and the TARDIS translated for her child. The Doctor smiled into River’s eyes as and she felt them widen at the endearment ‘beloved’.

“Now, River,” the Doctor said, “I'm about to whisper something in your ear and you have to remember it very very carefully and tell no one what I said.” He leaned in and murmured the rounded, liquid syllables into her ear, and she felt her eyes widen again at how  _simple_ it all was _._  “I just told you my name. Now. There you go.” He eased back.

“Then you may kiss the bride,” Jim said simply.

“I’ll make it a good one,” the Doctor said seriously, and leaned in again.

“You’d better,” River replied, and accepted the kiss.

And the people of Messaline, human and Hath alike, cheered.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

They danced, of course. They always danced at weddings. After a while they went off to enjoy some of the food - delicacies both human and Hath, clearly labelled for safety - and chatted with the guests of the massive party that followed the wedding. The old girl was nearby, serving as a translator, and Jim’s high priestess – River never had gotten her name – was quite clearly getting giddy on a Hath beverage.

The Doctor went off in search of more of that lovely unfermented juice of the branka fruit, and River danced with the Hath children who had been her attendants during the ceremony. She threw him a wink as she spun by, and he grinned after her.

River spotted Jim and the Doctor having a quiet conversation, and she went off to join them. When she got there, she heard the Doctor say something about not knowing where he would take her on a honeymoon, and she felt a warm glow inside. As though the dear man had to take her anywhere. Time and Space; anywhere, anywhen would do. But she did have one little wish.

“I’m hoping,” River said into his ear as she wrapped an arm around his waist, “That he’ll take me to Darillium, to see the Singing Towers. He’s been promising for ages.”

 “Right, well, there’s that surprise spoiled then,” the Doctor said in a cheerful tone, and pulled a face at his wife. She smirked back, and they stood grinning at one another until Jim cleared his throat, loudly. They looked at him.

“I  _said_ ,” he repeated, “It’s time to get the happy couple off to the far horizons.” He smiled at them in a sort of benediction as his own wife wrapped her arm around his pudgy waist. He dropped his voice. “Is this the last time we’ll see you, Doctor? River?”

“Oh no, Jim the Fish,” River said, and smiled at him and she took her husband’s hand and tugged gently toward the TARDIS. The door opened. “We’ll be back at least once, I can promise you that. And him?” She jerked her head at the Doctor. “He always shows up when you least expect it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Analogous to Time Flows Like a River: The Last Wedding


	13. Endings

_“Doctor, please tell me you know who I am.”_

_~Professor River Song, Forest of the Dead_

 

“Hello,” the Doctor said, and River smiled. _What’s wrong, my love?_ she thought, _you look so..._

They went to the planet of the ice cream shops, and ran into the younger him, and River checked the bulb on top of the younger Doctor’s TARDIS. There was flirting, and the-mind-races (even though she had already done that; she was teasing the younger him because she so loved to see him flustered).

Finally they were at Darillium, and River was excited in spite of her lingering uncertainty at his desolate expression. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them and turned to his wife. “Now,” he said softly. “River Song. Come with me,” and he offered her his arm.

She smiled at him, and accepted it, and together they stepped out of the TARDIS and onto the plain where the Towers stood. They stopped dead, listening, waiting for the Towers’ song.

And then it came.

The song was low, and soft, and heartbreakingly sad.

He held out one hand to her.

“Will you dance with me?” She smiled at him, and took his hand, twirling toward him and into his arms, where he held her as they swayed to the Song of the Towers. “Ah, my River,” he murmured into her hair, and she tipped her head up and back to look at him.

“Spoilers, then?” Her voice was quiet as they danced, and he nodded, and he cried. River curved her hand behind his neck and drew him down for a kiss.

The Doctor broke the kiss, but kept his arms tightly around River, and rested his forehead against hers. “My River Song, Melody Pond,” he said in a choked voice. “The woman who married me.” He took a deep breath. “And wife, I have a request.”

“Yes,” River said, and she smiled.

“Take this,” he said, slipping a sonic out of his pocket and pressing it into her hand. “Take it, my River, and keep it with you always. Promise me, River, _please_.”

“Always, my love,” she said, closing her fingers around the sonic. “I promise.”

And she drew him down with her into the long grass at the foot of the nearest Tower, and made slow and gentle love to him as all the Towers sang.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

When next she saw him, it was the black-eyed tenth him again.

She’d hated getting into the spacesuit, but there was no help for it. River shivered all over; spacesuits held bad memories.

She _loathed_ the suit. 

But it was necessary, and they’d had enough trouble with sweet-but-dim Miss Evangelista; River needed to set a good example, to not show the fear and the loathing and the damage.

Her Doctor wasn’t the only one to whom she was reluctant to show the damage.

He was the most important though, always the most important person. Show no damage - it had become a mantra of sorts, with this younger him. He didn’t know her. It wasn’t just that he didn’t trust her, like in Utah, or that he’d known little, like on Asgard.

This was different.

They had never met by his time stream, not once, so River swallowed the tears and showed no damage. He _must_ not see how much it hurt her. She was sure now, after Darillium, that whatever spoiler he had been hiding then was the biggest spoiler of all, and if she let anything - _anything_ \- slip, she could change their history.

 _not one line_  
show no damage  
not one blessed line 

But her hearts were breaking, for herself, for him, for Anita and Evangelista and the Daves.

When she saw what she would have to do, the sacrifice she would have to make, it was nearly a relief. Because what was the point?

If he didn’t know her, spoilers or not, what was the _point_? 

He wouldn’t want her to do it, not even _this_ him, the one who did not know her. This him was nearly suicidal with grief and rage over the Time War, the Master, Jenny of Messaline, all of them. He would become even more so after Donna… after what he’d have to do to her. And Mars, well… she’d heard about that, and she wished she could spare him the pain.

But if she did, she’d never meet him.

Never have met him.

And not only could she not bear to change even one line, she might blow a hole in the universe if she let him make this sacrifice. The paradox would be enormous, because if he died now, even if he regenerated now, _they_ \- she and he - would never come to be, and then she would not meet him here, and… yes, the paradox would be too great, even if she _wanted_ to live without him knowing her.

 _(a wash of gratitude and love in the back of her mind)_  

 _Well then, if the TARDIS approves._.. River thought, and felt a tiny measure of peace.

So she hit him, knocked him out cold. _The one silver lining of this him not knowing me,_ River thought sourly, _is that he never expected me to hit him_.

“River, you know my name,” he said pleadingly, those sad black eyes impassioned and aching. “You whispered my name in my ear. There’s only one way I would ever tell anyone my name. There’s only one way I _could_.”

It didn’t really matter what she said to him after that, because in the end, that was all she needed; she had to know that there was only one way he could.

 _he loved me_  

And that made it, while not precisely all right, at least bearable.

The last thing she thought as she let the energy take her away was that now she knew his final spoiler.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 _I don’t know where I am_ , River Song thought the first time she slept in the Library.

River didn’t know why it had taken weeks of Hard Drive Time before she thought to sleep. She’d spend the day reading in the endless stacks, spend the evening reading the children a story from her diary, editing as she went along (because some of the thoughts put there were not for little ears), and then next thing she knew it would be the next day… Library time.

After a few weeks of this she settled into a routine of sorts, and one evening she found herself scribbling on the very last page of the diary.

 _Some days are special_ , she wrote.  
 _Some days are so blessed…_  

 _a wash of agreement_  
and love  
and sadness 

The emotion felt like outside herself, like the feelings she used to get from the TARDIS, so long ago… wasn’t it so long ago? _Time is/was/shall be funny_ , she thought, and then River shook her head. She knew for certain _that_ thought had not been hers. She understood the physics, but wasn’t Time Lady enough to think in all those dimensions at once.

 _Sleep…_ the emotion suggested 

And River slept.

_I don’t know where I am…_

Suddenly she did know. She was in the TARDIS, though the old girl looked different.

And the Doctor… _oh_ the Doctor. So sad, not only the usual aching sadness behind his eyes, but a… a bleakness she couldn’t bear to see. It hurt too much to see, and he mustn’t see that it hurt her.

 _show no damage_  

“You’ve got to stop this, sweetie,” she said, smiling at him, but he ignored her. Or oh _bless_ , he couldn’t _see_ her, couldn’t hear her. “It’s not good for you. Go on, go out. Find a companion, travel the stars.”

He still didn’t respond, in any way, just shoved spectacles up his nose and sighed.

And River woke up with tears on her cheeks..

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“It’s not your fault, sweetie,” River said to her husband. He was grieving over the woman who had helped him defeat the Snowmen, and she knew he didn’t hear her, didn’t see her.

Just as she knew that it wasn’t only Clara he was grieving for.

The Doctor was grieving for everyone he’d lost, for Clara and Rose and Jo, and River’s parents, and for River herself.

River wrenched her attention away from her own thoughts, because the Doctor was asking his old girl what she thought he should do, where and when he should go to find Clara. _What_? River thought confusedly, _because hasn’t Clara just died_?

Then she got one of those imprecise feelings in the back of her mind, as the TARDIS tried to explain that this was not the first time the Doctor had encountered Clara, that she was timey wimey in some way… and that it hurt the consciousness in the blue box to have her aboard.

River felt a surge of rage at the thought of someone hurting the old girl, maybe hurting her husband. _She will_ not _hurt them,_ River thought fiercely, _not if I have anything to say about it_!

 _not her fault_  
the blue box said  
in River’s mind 

And River understood what the TARDIS was trying to say. It was Clara’s existence, her wrongness in time, that hurt the TARDIS. But it was inadvertent, accidental, and there was a definite feeling of confidence that Clara was _good_ for the Doctor, that she would/had somehow save/d him.

So River swallowed hard, said the first thing that came into her head, answering the Doctor’s question. “Jim the Fish?” she suggested, because Jim was also good for the Doctor.

But of course he couldn’t hear her, though it sounded like he responded. “Somewhere in the past, I think,” said the Doctor, addressing the console. “Maybe... somewhere quiet, where I can think. But not too isolated. I...”

 _No, my love,_ thought River sadly. _Too isolated is bad for you._ “I’ve got just the place,” she said aloud, and whispered the coordinates to the console.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

River Song visited almost every evening after that - if they could be called evenings in the Library hard drive.

She gave Clara the number for the call box on the outside of the TARDIS, reminded the Doctor that people can be uploaded and saved.

“Follow the leaf, my love,” she told him, and he did.

It nearly broke her hearts when he thought about the sonic and the bow tie, and whether he could bear to give one or the other to Dor’een to rent a scooter. It was on a pyramid, of course, just as the scooter was much like the one they’d rented on Calderon Beta, because the universe liked to remind her that she could never keep what she wanted.

River sighed to herself. After that speech he’d made to that sun… god… thing, she needed a little time away. Her hearts were breaking and she just needed… time.

But she couldn’t help herself, or maybe travelling to see him wasn’t as much under her control as she’d thought, because her consciousness ended up in a doll he had in his pocket (the universe only knew why; _he_ certainly didn’t know). And they were on a Soviet submarine of all places, and… well. Better not dwell.

There were other adventures, of course, a haunted house full of statues (River shuddered in atavistic fear), teaching Clara to drive and the salvage pirates. There were discussions of dreams (and River caught his reference if Clara didn’t) and that horrible woman in Victorian England with the bug-thing (and River felt a fierce sort of satisfaction that poor blind Ada Gillyflower had got some of her own back at least).

But then it was Cybermen, and the last time River’d seen them the Pandorica had opened and then she’d spent nearly two thousand years in the center of a recurring explosion and… oh, _bless_ , she was beginning to sound like her husband, all babbling energy and panic… River took a deep breath and smiled at the Doctor inside his own mind. “I’ll be a local resource if you like, my love,” she assured him, and for once she didn’t even have to remind herself to show no damage. She simply could not show it, or he would die, taken over by a Cyberleader, and so she must not show it.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

“Madame Vastra,” River found herself saying to the lizard woman. And then she got her first good look at Clara, at _only_ Clara, without the Doctor there, and it was… interesting. Strax was amusing as most Sontarans were not, but Clara…

“Sorry,” Clara was saying, “It’s just that I never realized you were a woman.”

River tried to smile at this, but she knew it was the show-no-damage smile. _Don’t be silly_ , she told herself, _you know he doesn’t talk about his former companions, it hurts him too much_. And she valiantly ignored the tiny part of her that said _but you were more than just any companion…_

 _No… no, my love, you can’t go to Trenzalore. I’ll have to…_  

 _I’ll have to give them your name_ …

“He can’t see me or hear me,” River said to Clara, and wondered how she’d got there. And then, skipping to another scene as she had in the early days in the Library, “I died saving him. In return he saved me to a database in the biggest library in the universe. Left me like a book on a shelf. Didn't even say goodbye. He doesn't like endings,” and thanked the universe that he couldn’t hear her say the words.

She knew better. She knew he hadn’t known her then.

But she was still bitter, and as he couldn’t hear her, she may as well say it.

_Skip scene._

As she then said his name.

_Skip scene._

What was causing these skips? The universe, the TARDIS? Was she playing a part she wasn’t even aware of?

“There has to be another way. Use the TARDIS, use something. Save her, yes. But for God's sake, be sensible!” River swung to slap him, knowing it was useless.

But he caught her by the wrist.

 “How are you even doing that? I'm not really here.” Part of her thrilled that he could touch her.

“You're always here to me. And I always listen. And I can always see you.” _But_...

 **“** Then why didn't you speak to me?”

 **“** Because I thought it would hurt too much.” _Of course, but show no damage._..

 **“** I believe I could have coped.”

“No. I thought it would hurt me. And I was right.” He kissed her, as he had so long ago, and then pulled away. “Since nobody else in this room can see you, God knows how that looked. There is a time to live and a time to sleep. You are an echo, River. Like Clara, like all of this. In the end, my fault, I know. But you should have faded by now.” _But_...

 **“** It's hard to leave when you haven't said goodbye.”

 **“** Then tell me, because I don't know. How do I say it?”

 **“** There's only one way I would accept. If you ever loved me, say it like you're going to come back.”

“Well then. See you around, Professor River Song.” _Oh, yes!_

“'Til the next time, Doctor.”

“Don't wait up.”

“Oh there's one more thing.” _He does love the flirting..._

“Isn't there always?”

“I was mentally linked with Clara. If she's really dead then how can I still be here?”

“Okay, How?”

“Spoilers. Goodbye. Sweetie.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~

 

_Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days nobody dies at all. Now and then, every once in a very long while - every day in a million days when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call - everybody lives._

_Maybe one day,_ thought River Song as she drifted off to sleep. _Maybe he’ll come for me..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Analogous to the last three chapters of Time Flows Like a River.

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to some of my favorite readers and writers of this pairing.


End file.
